Desperado
by Faye M.A
Summary: "Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? Come down from your fences; open the gate. It may be raining, but there's a rainbow above you. You'd better let somebody love you before it's too late." Or, Loki's one chance at redemption. A novel-length story, told in chapters. Parallel universe, post-Avengers. No reference to Thor 2. Standard pairings, with the addition of LokixSif.
1. Chapter 1

_Hello there, dear readers! Welcome to my crazy project that has occupied my writing life for about eight months. As the summary indicates, this is a novel-length story set in the Avengers universe. It also takes place in the Thor 'verse, but I didn't mark it as crossover fic because the whole Marvel world is basically one giant crossover anyway. :-) This takes place post-Avengers, but, considering I wrote most of it before Thor 2 even had trailers out, it takes nothing from Thor 2 into account. This is my personal, created story of Loki's punishment and retribution. That being said, I don't own anything in this story but for the story itself._

_I plan to update on a weekly basis, and I hope you enjoy this ride with me! Special thank you to my beta readers and to my sister, who has had to listen to too much about this story for far too long. Now, without further ado or rambling:_

**Desperado**  


Thor hadn't seen the Avengers in what felt like eons. He had been rather busy dealing with the aftermath of the Chitauri battle – both on earth and on Asgard. Tony and the rest had taken on the duty of resurrecting and repairing New York City, but the hefty burden of intergalactic peace fell squarely upon Thor's shoulders.

Things had simmered down enough for the time being, but Thor could still feel the metaphysical eyes of all Nine Realms on him constantly, as though any flaw on his part would predispose the universe to complete and utter destruction. He hadn't slept soundly in weeks, his mind whirring away, carried off by voices and memories and things that may not have been memories but remained pungent nonetheless. He didn't truly know the difference between conjured fear and apprehension and honest memory any longer.

Sometimes, as he lay awake at night, the only face before his eyes was that of his fallen little brother. The image would sometimes be stolen from a time before the downward spiral, as Thor preferred to think of it; other times, though, his brother would sneer at him mockingly as he brandished his scepter, all signs of a childhood between them entirely lost.

This night, Thor saw the latter.

He rose from his bed wearily, rubbing his spent eyes with the heels of his hands. He liked to think he wasn't trying to rub out the image itself, but he couldn't lie to himself so fluently; that had always been Loki's department.

In his ears rang the remembered sound of his brother being hauled off to the dungeon to await his trial that would bring penance for his actions on earth and Asgard alike. He cringed at the memory not because there were screams, but because there was silence. Absolute silence.

Loki's hardened face as he approached his reparation had chilled Thor to the bone. He had heard his brother cry out many times in their youth, but seeing his stoic resolve – was it resolve? – made his blood thin in his veins. There was nothing more sickening than Loki's proud stature, set jaw, and strong step, because Thor knew that it would only take a longer and harsher punishment to break him of that.

Tomorrow, his fate would be decided by the court. Once the first sun rose over the horizon, Loki would be brought to face his retribution; the Warriors Three, Sif, and he, Thor, would be attending as potential witnesses, should they be called upon. It pained him to think that he may have to testify against his own little brother, but a small part of him nagged that Loki had more than earned a few harsh words from his mouth.

Thor groaned as he paced the room once, twice, before finally getting up the courage to open the heavy wooden door. As he poked his head out, the halls of the Asgardian palace yawned open to him, inviting him for a stroll; he was all too happy to oblige.

He walked a long while without ever being entirely certain as to his direction, not that he cared much at all. He eventually found himself outside in the warm night air, a gentle breeze toying with his long blonde hair. A smile normally would have skipped up onto his face, but not this night. And not for many nights prior.

"Thor," whispered a voice behind him. He spun in surprise, and Fandral raised his eyebrows. "Are you well?" he asked kindly.

"In truth, no," Thor answered, turning back to the empty night stretched out beneath him. He would never have been so honest with anyone less than one of his closest friends.

Fandral approached Thor calmly, resting his forearms on the balcony's railing casually. "Is Loki still troubling you?" he asked.

Thor sighed. "Of course." He paused, taking a breath. "I saw him again tonight. Just as he was the last time we saw him above ground and in person."

"He was quite resolute, was he not?"

"He appeared that way, yes," Thor replied, not looking at Fandral. "But then, who truly knows what was raging within his mind?"

For a moment, Fandral was quiet. When his friend didn't respond immediately, Thor brushed the story away as though it were trivial. "Forgive me, friend. I do not wish to bore you with my woes."

"Thor, I miss him as well."

Fandral had caught Thor by surprise. "Nobody misses my brother," he said.

With a small smile, Fandral said, "I do. I worry about him. The entire city worries about him." Thor looked away, but Fandral pressed on. "Have you not seen the manner in which the commoners have mourned him? Flowers have lined the streets before and since the pair of you returned. The people still cry over him. The people still pray."

Thor stiffened at the thought of it. Not because it upset him, but because it touched him. He had not been outside of the palace since he and Loki had returned, save for the ever-constant peace meetings with delegates from other realms. He had no idea that the people cared at all.

Fandral placed a warm hand on Thor's shoulder. "Go to him," he said. "Pay him a visit. It may perhaps set your mind at ease."

* * *

Thor had not been planning to take Fandral's advice. He had simply smiled wearily at his friend before turning and walking away. He had been wandering the halls as before, still entirely lost in thought. But, his sleep-deprived brain must have taken a firm hold of the last thing he had heard, as he found himself standing inside the dungeon.

He had no recollection of the guards moving aside to allow him passage, yet here he stood. His breath fogged in the cool, dank air of the underground prison, and he could not bring himself to move for a very long moment. The halls reached out to the right and left before him, the edges of which were lined with cells – bars, chains, the works. In one of those cells was his little brother.

Instinct told him to go left, so he did, his feet heavy like stones. His very heartbeat seemed to echo in the dungeon, coupled with the dense clatter of chains from within the cells on either side of him. He had heard that, in other prisons in other realms, prisoners called out as visitors and guards passed them by, reaching skeletal hands through the bars in desperation, begging for mercy or death – anything but the stench and isolation of their own personal hellhole.

Nothing like that ever happened in Asgard.

Thor wondered briefly what the guards did to subdue prisoners to the point of complete and utter helplessness. He stopped his mind from wandering too far – before he could imagine how difficult Loki must have been.

Speak of the devil.

In a cell at the end of the hall, at least four cells' distance from any other prisoner of any sort, sat a figure Thor would have known even if he had suddenly fallen blind. His brother sat in the corner of his cell, back pressed against the stone, staring up toward the far wall intently. His expression was placid enough, mild indifference coupled with empirical interest, as though he had been asked to memorize the dimensions of whatever it was that held his attention.

Thor approached silently, though he knew that sneaking up on Loki was about as impossible as outwitting him – it could be done, but only by someone stealthier than most. As he drew nearer, he noticed something peculiar about the grid of metal closing off Loki's cell like a portcullis: it shimmered as if heat radiated off of it, filling in the square gaps with a sheen similar to that of a soap bubble.

Thor swallowed. He knew Loki was aware of his presence, but he still felt the need to make himself known. "Hello, brother," he whispered, though he felt that his voice boomed in the silence of the dungeon.

Loki did not acknowledge him in any way, his gaze remaining fixed to the upper corner of the cell, hands resting in his lap.

With a clear of the throat, Thor continued, "Are you well?"

Nothing. His face still bore the pride of a prince, but his royal clothing had taken quite a hit during his few days in prison. Those keen eyes still shone with the remnants of a flame, despite the rather grey pallor of his face and emaciated cheeks. In fact, the closer Thor looked, the gaunter his entire body appeared. And Loki said not a word.

"What are you looking at?" Thor tried. Once more couldn't hurt.

The seconds drug by, and, when Thor was fairly certain that Loki wouldn't speak to him, he gave a small sigh and turned to go. Just as he took the first step away from the cell, he stopped dead.

"The moon."

Thor looked back, not entirely sure that the thin voice belonged to his brother. "Loki?" he prompted, hoping for another word from the otherwise inert man in the cell.

"I am looking at the moon," Loki said. His voice sounded so weak and disused – very different from his characteristically confident tone that spun words into gold.

Thor followed his eyes up to the ceiling. There was nothing there. "Loki, I cannot see a thing."

Loki waved a manacled hand, the chains clinking, as if to brush off Thor's comment. The irons glistened unnaturally like the cell door. He knew little about magic, but Thor guessed that someone had cast a spell over the cell to restrain Loki from connecting with the supernatural energy that flowed eagerly through him.

Examining his brother's face for signs of madness, Thor leaned closer to the door. He saw nothing there that would indicate a loss of faculty on Loki's part, yet he could see no moon. As Thor watched him carefully, he realized that, should the ceiling be absent, Loki would in fact be staring right at the Asgardian moon. How he knew it was nighttime at all – much less the precise position of the moon – fell beyond Thor's line of reasoning, but Loki somehow understood.

"Oh," he said, leaning toward the bars. Loki's eyebrow twitched as if to say, _You finally got it. Good for you._

As Loki didn't offer any more to the conversation, Thor turned to leave once more. This time, Loki didn't stop him. But Thor didn't want to leave. Not yet, at least. Despite the fact that Loki seemed to care very little about his presence, he couldn't leave the cell door.

"Loki," he said, and his brother tore his eyes from the "moon," instead fiddling absently with his chains, twisting the manacles around his wrists as if they didn't fit quite as well as he'd have liked. If Thor squinted, he could see rubs and cuts on Loki's wrists from the metal cuffs. "Have they been good to you?" Thor asked.

The younger man granted Thor a single glance, arching his eyebrow derisively. _This is prison, Thor._

"I just meant that – "

He was quelled by a roll of the eyes.

Finally, he sighed. "Loki, you must cease this stubbornness if you wish your trial to be swift."

Loki's head just swiveled back to watching the ceiling, searching for the moon that he knew was out there somewhere, shining over all the world except for him. _This conversation is over_.

He didn't know what made him say it; he hadn't even felt the question in his mind at all, so, when he heard himself asking it, he was almost surprised. "Who else has spoken to you of the trial?" he asked, somehow knowing that he hadn't been the first.

A flash in those green eyes was the only indication of truth. A second of rage – annoyance that Thor dared to address him from the other side of that enchanted door – passed over his face, and then it was gone.

"Who was it?"

Loki steeled his eyes and clenched his teeth in complete unresponsiveness.

"Father?"

No reaction.

"Mother?"

No reaction.

"Who then?" Thor demanded, despite his knowledge that Loki would never say. Almost immediately after the words left his lips, one more name came to mind: the name of one who had indeed spoken to Loki in the prison before and had the nerve to talk about anything, no matter how taboo. "Sif?" he asked, both absolutely certain and absolutely tentative.

Loki blinked – a compulsory reaction which Thor took to mean that he had guessed correctly. Sure enough, his brother's jaw softened with the realization of his having been found out.

"What did she want?"

"Nothing," spat Loki venomously, barely allowing Thor to finish his query. Thor waited for a moment, letting Loki stew in the hopes that a more believable answer would tumble from his mouth. Thor was not so lucky.

Eventually, Loki scoffed and closed his eyes. "Why have you come?"

That was the question, was it not? "I could not sleep," Thor answered automatically.

Loki cocked his head, raising his eyebrows. _Care to share the real reason?_

"I –" Thor stammered, suddenly unable to form words. He never had had a problem speaking before. His thoughts usually cascaded from his brain to his lips easily and freely. But, as his current thoughts were far from concrete, he could not put them into words.

His silver-tongued brother who could not relate gave up on him, turning instead to stare at the wall opposite Thor, leaving the older brother little choice but to look at the back of Loki's head.

Before Thor understood what he was doing, he had retreated back down the hallway toward the dungeon door, as if he had been threatened. The stone walls seemed so close, squeezing him into a small, suffocating place. He passed the guards, who probably nodded courteously to him, but Thor didn't see for sure. The dungeon was sealed, Thor hurrying from the prison as quickly as he could, drinking in the fresh air and trying desperately not to think of his brother, chained up in a cell on the other side.

By the time Thor had crossed the entryway, he was too far away to hear Loki growl and yank on his chains furiously in a moment of raw anger – a combination of hatred and rage, as volatile as the sea during a storm.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello again! Thank you to anyone who's reading this, and I hope you're enjoying it so far. Just a note on formatting and the progression of the story: any italicized chapters are part of the backstory/prologue. All of the regular-type chapters are the story, occurring in real time. This is the first backstory/prologue chapter, and it takes place several weeks before Chapter 1. You'll get intermittent sections of the prologue spliced throughout the first half of the story, so be ready, and remember about the italics! :-) Anyway, please read on! Reviews and PMs are welcome.

* * *

_Loki had been in the dungeon for two days before anybody was allowed to see him; he had been considered to be too volatile before._

_He did not know this, of course._

_He only knew the three stone walls of his cell and the iron lattice-work door that had been enchanted just like his fetters to keep his natural power subdued and to inhibit any expulsion of magic. He only had begun to learn the faces of the guards and their rotation times, which let him discern with surprising accuracy the time of day. They were quite punctual, after all. He watched them change, a new guard at dawn, at noon, at dusk, and at midnight, and he reminded himself that somewhere, beyond this cell, time was passing._

_That was the only thing that kept him quiet. Knowing that the moon still moved, the suns still shone, and the stars still formed constellations gave him a sort of solace that made him silent. It didn't provide peace, but it offered a promise for good behavior._

_At dawn on the second day, immediately following the rotation of guards and the security check, the sound of footsteps echoed its way down the hall, the reverberation reaching Loki's cell with little difficulty. He looked up, a mixture of confusion and interest playing havoc with his mind. As far as he knew, nobody save the guards was allowed into the dungeon. And if a guard was coming down the hall so shortly after rotation, something was amiss._

_He itched to rise and look through the bars on the cell door. His savage curiosity burned as the footsteps drew nearer, passing all other prisoners and honing in on him. Any other would have grown anxious at the certainty of destination, but Loki knew that he had done nothing – literally, nothing – in the two days he had been there. What could a guard possibly want with him?_

_A shadowy form came to a stop by his door, veiled in the ashy void left where the torchlight didn't reach. He surveyed it with unmasked apathy; shorter and slighter than most guards, though the stance was intimidating nonetheless. A flicker of a nearby flame cast a nominal amount of light over the figure for only a second, but it was enough for Loki to discern the distinctly feminine build. His stomach clenched at the realization. _You.

_"Come now," he said silkily, "you need not hide."_

_At his invitation, the figure took a step forward._

_"Lady Sif," he acknowledged politely, inclining his head like a gentleman._

_The Shieldmaiden took a breath, her fists clenching and unclenching. She looked like she wanted to wring his neck; the thought of it struck more fear into Loki's heart than any trained guard ever could have done._

_"Loki." Her voice was unusually small, and it immediately set him on edge._

_He stood and took a cautious step toward the grated door, scrutinizing her face. "Why Sif," he said, more surprised than he let on, "are those tears?"_

_In response, she roughly wiped them away, like they had offended her somehow, and refused to meet his eyes. They both knew that she never cried. It didn't need to be said that Sif hadn't shed a tear publicly since she was a child and Thor had beaten her unfairly in a training exercise. And if she had cried since, she only did so behind the closed, locked, and barred doors to her chambers, with her head under her pillow so that no eavesdroppers could hear. Or, very, very rarely, on Loki's shoulder._

_Loki hadn't tried to touch the cell door since it had been enchanted by the mage-smiths of Svartalfheim, but, when he laced his long fingers through the metal frame, nothing happened. He was grateful, though he also hated the door more than anything in that moment – that moment when he should have been on the other side of it, letting Sif either pummel him into the ground or collapse into his arms. Whichever she chose, he would have taken it gladly if it stopped her tears._

_"How observant," she replied, an artificial chill in her voice._

_He reached through the bars as far as he could before his manacles caught with a clank. She graciously stepped forward, close enough for him to touch her, and she placed her wrists into his hands. He stroked them with his thumbs gently, a sharp grin slashing across his face. "I would have imagined you would have squelched all this . . . sentiment." He let his voice hiss and stab with every syllable, hoping it would hurt her as much as it hurt him._

_"Oh, don't," she spat, sniffing through her hot tears. "Don't you dare put on that front with me. You and I know each other. That is not you any more than this –" she gestured fiercely to her wet cheeks – "is me. And if you think I wouldn't cry about this, then you are a fool. These tears are for you, you imbecilic prince, because, to get you to return home, you needed to be defeated, gagged, and hauled back by your brother." She pulled a hand away and scrubbed at her cheeks again, leaving a pink streak from her calloused knuckles. "And because, to keep you here, we had to chain you up in prison like a dog."_

_His face darkened. "Sif, you know that I do not belong here." He didn't mean prison, and he could see that she knew as much._

_"And you see, that's the worst of it," she said, "because I don't care if you're a Jotunn or an elf or a dwarf or a human or –" She stopped, words growing thick and angry in her throat. "When you fell from the Bifrost, the commoners mourned you. I had never seen them mourn with more passion or more sincerity than they showed for you. And not one of them mourned more than your family. Your family, who knew – not because you showed them as you showed me, but because they never cared about your origin. You were their family, and they mourned you as such."_

_For a moment, Loki remained silent, her words reaching into his soul and stirring something there, though he knew not what. "And you?" he finally asked coldly._

_She offered him a smile so full of grief and bitterness that it almost pained him to look upon it. "I mourn still."_

_"Why?" he spat. "Surely no one else has given me a second thought since they dumped me down here. Why would you care?"_

_She sighed quietly, a rare gesture for Sif, who believed that sighs and giggles were for girls, not for women, and especially not for any woman worth her weight in salt. Then, in a voice so soft that it might have been a whisper, she said, "I knew a man once – a remarkable man. We spent our childhood together, playing jokes and causing mischief in the court. We were best friends. He would pull my hair, and I would punch him in the face." A tiny grin rose to her lips at the memory – one which she apparently recalled with fondness, though Loki could only remember the number of black eyes he had suffered at the receiving end of her fist._

_"One day, he learned something," she continued. "It changed the way he looked at himself. He suddenly thought himself vile, as if a bilgesnipe were living inside his skin. This hatred killed the man I knew quite some time ago. A different being has since taken him over, stealing his face and his voice, making him do the unthinkable. His form stands before me, taunting me with his expressions and gestures twisted into something loathsome, and I wonder if I will ever see him again." She hesitated, chancing a glance up at his face. "I mourn the loss of the man – not his body, but his being."_

_The idea cut him – straight down to the bone – and he wondered if maybe there was a small chance that it could possibly be true. That perhaps, he had changed. But that feeling left as quickly as it had come._

_He dropped Sif's hands and paced the cell once, suddenly and unexpectedly agitated. "Sif," he growled, "what am I?"_

_"It matters not –" she began, but he cut her off._

_"Answer the question!"_

_Sif let out a small, short breath of mild irritation. Then, after a long hesitation, she glanced around to be sure they were out of anybody's earshot and muttered, "You are a Frost Giant of Jotunheim."_

_"And is this not the heart of my true race?" he demanded icily, as if to back up his own question with further proof that he was born with snow in his veins._

_She was silent for a moment, and when she said, "No," he could practically smell the lie on her._

_He scoffed and turned away._

_"You're different, Loki," she tried, pressing her hands up against the bars, imploring him to understand that, when she looked at him, she still saw the boy with the bruising black eyes – the lanky adolescent camped out in the library – the man who could impress her to bits with a magical wave of his hand (though she would never show it, of course). "You are not like them."_

_His entire body ignored her, though he listened still. But, at the same time, he wanted to clamp his hands over his ears and curl up into a ball on the ground as he had done once when he was a child and Thor's friends had told him the scary stories of Frost Giants. They had been hideous stories – even for adults, the darkness didn't fade, despite the years. Even the name of the race sounded brutal, no matter which variation one chose; Jotunn was just as bad as Frost Giant. And Loki got to claim both._

_"You know the stories," he muttered darkly to Sif. "You used to sit with your knees pulled up to your chest, face buried, but we all knew you listened. Do you remember?"_

_Sif felt her face grow warm at the memory. Not long ago, she would have considered it fondly, laughing at how girlish she was when she was young. Loki would have smiled, and Thor would have clapped her on the back, declaring that she has certainly outgrown such tendencies. But today, she was embarrassed. If only she had known. If only _he_ had known. She liked to think that she never would have been so afraid; whether that was the truth, though, was uncertain. Would she have feared Loki too, had she known? The thought made her shudder with revulsion._

_"I remember," she replied, her voice cracking. At the sound, a nearly imperceptible smirk twitched at Loki's lips before it fell from his face once more, proving to her that her best friend and god of mischief was still there; he might be buried deep, but he was there. "You used to tease me when I was frightened."_

_A mirthless smile rose on his lips. "Ah yes. I seem to recall you chasing me through the palace on more than one occasion, threatening me with dismemberment." He arched an eyebrow at her, a shadow in his gaze._

_She leaned up against the bars, realizing that she had stopped crying, though her cheeks were still damp. She never had been able to cry properly around him; he simply wouldn't have it so. "And I seem to recall," she returned, "that you only got away twice – once because my mother caught me and the other because you managed to get into a room and lock the door behind you."_

_Though he gave a short laugh, his face didn't become any more cheerful. He drew a deep breath, eyeing her curiously. Finally, he said, "Did you ever think – even for a second – that I was not of Asgard? That I was not like you and Thor and everybody else?"_

_"No." She didn't have to think over their history together to know that the news had been as much of a shock and surprise to her as it had been to Thor, who had been raised calling Loki "brother" and thinking nothing of it._

_"You would stake your life on that?" When she looked at him, uncertain, he added, "It happens to be quite important to me."_

_Sif hadn't lied. She had truly never found anything to be excessively odd about Loki. Except – "There were moments when you seemed . . . peculiar," she told him. "Not foreign, but different. Like how, in the winter, we would all wrap up in furs and still shiver, but you seemed perfectly comfortable in naught but a heavy cloak. There was never anything more overt than simple things, such as that."_

_"You never wondered?" he challenged, shifting those intimidating green eyes up to her. Only they didn't blaze as had become his usual. They seemed to plead instead. Plead for her honesty._

_"No." And she meant it._

_"I suppose," he said, resting a hand on the bars, "if you had, you wouldn't be here."_

_She hesitated, and then she responded, "I suppose not." He shot an indignant glance up at her, but she just shrugged. "Neither would you."_

_For a long moment, he looked as if he was going to reply; his mouth opened and closed, his brow furrowed slightly in concentration as he arranged the words precisely how he wanted them. It was unusual for him to have to think about it, so, naturally, Sif slowly grew concerned. Just as she was about to ask him if she had upset him, he let out a miniscule sigh and said, "Perhaps you're right."_


	3. Chapter 3

_Hello readers! We're slipping away from Asgard for a spell to peek in (real time) on Stark Tower in New York! Now that you're oriented in time and space, I hope you enjoy this chapter!_

* * *

"Alright, Legolas, you and me."

Clint picked up his favorite bow and half-jogged into the middle of the extensive training room to meet Tony, who was outfitted in gauntlets of sorts that fed on energy from his arc reactor. Checking his quiver for arrows, he gave Tony a nod.

"JARVIS," Tony called to the computer, "activate the decoys."

Tony and Clint stood back to back on a ten-meter circle that was situated in the middle of other, progressively larger, rings like a bulls-eye. On the tracks that ran between the outer rings, robotic dummies rose from the floor. The rings began to turn in opposing directions, speeds varying, around where Tony and Clint stood.

"Alright Stark, no cheating." Clint pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked it to his bow with practiced fluidity, bringing the string to full draw and holding. "In three – two – one –"

A pulse of light from Tony's gauntlet shattered the first dummy, opening the field. Clint loosed his arrow and grabbed another without even thinking to do so.

Two more shots from Tony; two more dummies with holes straight through their middles.

Clint shot at something he only saw with the corner of his eye, immediately nocking another arrow to his bowstring. He didn't check to see if his first shot had made it home; he knew without a doubt that it had.

"Hey Stark," he said loudly, over the noise from the robots and Tony's energy pulses, "what does it tell you when an assassin can't shoot straight?"

Tony shot down another dummy before replying, "Uh, that he's probably not very good at his job?" He spun and picked off two more robots, adding, "No offense, Robin Hood."

"Ha-ha," Clint said, sarcasm clear as crystal. "It tells you he's not really trying." And with that, he pulled two arrows from his quiver, nocked them both simultaneously, and fired at precisely the right second. Two dummies in an inner circle had lined up with two in an outer circle, and, when he loosed his twin arrows, he managed to skewer all four at once.

"Yeah, what was that thing about no cheating?" Tony remarked, getting one robot down with each of his hands.

Clint just scoffed and kept shooting. _Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen._ Two down. _Fifteen._

Every time a ring made a full revolution, he got to see how many Tony had blown sky-high. So far, he counted seventeen. He needed to step up his game. Pulling more of the double-arrow trick ought to even the playing field.

_Seventeen. Eighteen. _

Three more from Tony.

He checked his quiver, debating an explosive arrowhead. He stopped himself before he could carry through with it, though; if that wasn't cheating, he wasn't sure what was. Two more of his arrows took out two more robots. Empty spaces rotated around on them, and the dummies that still stood were either pierced through with arrows or blown mostly to bits.

For a moment, he and Tony stood still, watching the robots circle them. The program was set to stop once all of the dummies had been compromised, but it still turned, telling them that there was one more left. And their scores were tied, if Clint had counted correctly.

His fingers itched at the bowstring, drawing it and waiting. Where was it?

Amidst the ruins of the outer ring, he spotted it: the one survivor. Not seconds later, his arrow was through its robotic forehead, and the rings slowed to a stop.

"I win," Clint said, turning around and eyeing Tony smugly. "I believe that's one all-expense-paid cruise to the Bahamas for me, thank you very much."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Fine, Barton. It's not like I'd want to go to the Bahamas again anyway. Seen it once, seen it a million times."

"That's not what I've heard," taunted Clint as he pulled an arrow out of a dummy's chest and checked the arrowhead for damages.

"Yeah, yeah."

"I'll talk to Fury and see if he'll let me and Nat off the hook for a week sometime"

"Whoa now," Tony said, unstrapping his arms from the gauntlets. "I never said anything about Natasha."

Clint grinned, his back to Tony so he couldn't see. "Oh, well, I promised Tasha and Steve that they could come along if I won. Which I did."

Tony groaned theatrically. "Just go ahead and make it a family affair, why don't you?" He tossed his gauntlets onto a table with other bits and pieces of his Iron Man suit that he used for testing and training in the massive basement of Stark Tower.

"You know, that's a really great idea!" Clint could almost see Tony's hair curling in annoyance; the knowledge that he was bothering everyone's favorite billionaire made him unusually proud of himself.

After a moment, Tony shrugged. "Alright fine. I could use a cruise anyway." He and Clint started out of the room; at the door, Tony turned around, almost causing Clint to run into him. "But I'm only buying for you, you got that?"

In response, Clint held up his hands in mock surrender. "Whatever you say, man."

"Hey JARVIS, fix these dummies," Tony said as he left. "I've gotta get better so Arrow Boy doesn't beat me again. Also gotta stop betting on cruises."

"Who's going on a cruise?" Pepper met them in the hallway with a smile, her ever-present clipboard pressed against her chest like a student's textbook.

Without missing a beat, Tony replied, "You and me. And everybody else." He took her by the shoulders and kissed her cheek. "We're all going to the Bahamas. A little sun, a little sand. How does that sound?"

"Great," she said, "but where are you planning on getting this time, Tony?" She glanced down at her clipboard. "You're kind of busy at the moment. Both for SHIELD and for the company."

Tony made a face that reminded Clint of a child who had just been told to eat his vegetables. "Always the personal assistant," he told her. "You know me; I'll make time." He gave her one of his classic, flashy grins and slid past her. After nodding his "hello" and "goodbye" to Pepper, Clint followed in Tony's wake. The elevator at the end of the hall opened as soon as they pressed the call button, and they took it up to the main floor of the tower – the one with the deck that wrapped all the way around it, sporting a landing pad at one end.

When the doors opened, the pair of them almost collided with Bruce, who had been waiting for the elevator to arrive. "Whoa there," Tony said, skirting Bruce. "Don't sneak up on us."

"Actually, I was just looking for you guys," Bruce responded, falling into step alongside Tony as he headed down the hall to the living room.

"What for?" Clint lengthened his stride to keep up, walking awkwardly behind and between the other two men, as if he wasn't as important because he didn't have a PhD of some variety hanging on his wall. He knew that wasn't how they thought of him, but it didn't change the fact that it was the truth, and sometimes it nagged him inside like an itch. He shook it off and asked again, "What's up?"

Bruce, who had always been the kinder of the two resident egg-heads, angled himself back so that Clint could hear as well as Tony. "Fury wants an update on the rebuild." Before Tony could speak, he clarified, "Not the tower. The city."

"He can look out the window and see it himself," Tony said, a hint of insolence in his tone.

Bruce shook his head. "We all know Fury doesn't play like that. He wants your perspective – your plans, not what he can see rising up out of the dust."

"When did he call?" Clint asked.

"A few minutes ago. I was going to keep him on the line so he could talk to you, but he had a meeting or something and had to run."

"How do you like that?" Tony scoffed. "The guy calls to talk to me, but he won't stick around long enough to actually talk to me."

Clint shrugged; he knew better than most the type of problems Fury dealt with on a daily basis. SHIELD more than had its hands full at present, trying to ensure that alien races stayed away from the planet, working with the Avengers to reconstruct what had fallen in the last battle, and keeping all of this out of the eyes of the public – it was a rather tall order.

Tony stepped behind the bar and poured himself a scotch. "Alright fine. I'll touch base with him tomorrow."

"Actually," Bruce said, a bit hesitantly, "I think he wanted you to call today."

Setting his glass down on the counter with a loud _clank_, Tony cocked his head at Bruce. "Well now, that's cute. He wanted plans and goals and stuff for the rebuild, right? Even Fury knows that I need time to come up with something like that."

"I think he was under the impression that you already had ideas." Bruce leaned against the bar casually, as if he was commenting on the weather. "You know, that you'd already started working on that, seeing as our city kind of took a heavy blow a couple months back."

"The city's been doing a great job getting back onto its own two feet," Tony said, downing his scotch and offering the others drinks as well; they both refused, so he poured himself another. "Why do I need to be involved?"

"Because it was your brilliant idea to tell the world you're Iron Man," said Clint, lounging on a sofa and staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Bruce shot Tony a look that clearly said, _The man's got a point._

Stashing the scotch bottle under the bar, Tony replied, "Hey, you all weren't exactly being covert either. What did you want from me? Let you guys take all my glory?" He made a face and shook his head. "Anyway, the people wanted to know. They deserve someone they can trust."

As he downed this round of scotch, Tony took in Clint and Bruce – both wearing matching expressions of skepticism. "Alright fine," he concluded, "I'll talk to Fury. Tomorrow." He took off around the corner, calling back, "I'll be in my garage."

Once Tony was out of earshot, Clint said, "Speaking of Fury and SHIELD, have you heard anything from Thor?"

Bruce shook his head. "No." He seated himself in a chair opposite Clint. "I can only hope the intergalactic liaison thing is working out in our favor. I'd hate to have to deal with more alien jerks who think that they can just run our planet."

"Yeah, but even if Thor had been our ambassador before," Clint put in, "it's not like he exactly saw that whole mess coming. And it was his _brother_, too. No number of peace talks or alliances could have changed it."

"True." Bruce leaned forward, resting his chin in his palm. "Seriously, though, what made Loki do it? I mean, with a brother like Thor, why would he suddenly decide to go bad?"

Clint scoffed. "Who said he decided?"

With a small shrug, Bruce continued, "All I'm saying is that Thor is a good guy – a really good guy. I don't think he has a bad bone in him. But his brother . . . the comment about the bag full of cats still stands."

They heard the refrigerator open and close, and Clint turned around to find Steve shining an apple on his sleeve. "Are you all talking about Loki?" he asked before taking a hunk of flesh out of the fruit noisily.

"Yeah," replied Bruce. "I was just wondering about him."

Steve's brow knit in concern as he crossed from the kitchenette to the living room, swallowing his bite of apple. "Why? Is he out?"

"If he was, you'd better believe we wouldn't just be sitting here," Clint told him. "Oh, by the way, I won the bet."

"Really?" A grin spread across Steve's face.

"Yep. Pack your bags, Cap; we're going to the Bahamas."

Bruce looked confused, but he said nothing. When Clint saw his expression, though, he explained. "I made a bet with Tony and won. Everyone's taking a cruise to the Bahamas for a week. You're invited too, Doc, if you want to come."

"Sure," Bruce said. "Just let me check with the Other Guy. Sometimes he doesn't do too well on boats." He remembered the Helicarrier all too well.

They sat in silence for a moment, the quiet only broken by Steve, who bit off another chunk of his apple. "But really, though," he said, once he had swallowed, "Loki?"

Clint was not exactly glad of this resurface in conversation; he had hoped that his talk of the bet would defer Steve's attention. Talking about the battle was bad, but talking about the man who had caused it was worse.

"Yeah," Bruce began. "See, we haven't heard a peep from Thor."

"And that could be either really good or really bad," Steve finished.

"Pretty much nailed it."

As much as Clint wanted to shrug it all off, claiming that no news is good news, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Thor was pretty good about keeping in touch with Earth – Midgard, as he called it. Even if the only reason was a pretty girl out in New Mexico. "Has anyone called Jane?" he said. When the other two men just looked at him, he clarified, "He might have contacted her. She might know something."

"I doubt it," Bruce reasoned. "He's sentimental, but I don't think he'd talk to her and not us."

Steve shrugged, turning the apple around in his fingers. "Well, last he heard, we all did kind of want to kill his brother."

"Last we heard, so did he." Clint was surprised at the frustration that came through in his voice; but at the same time, he wasn't surprised at all.

"Brothers can't stay mad at each other forever," Steve said.

Clint scoffed, but Bruce just arched an eyebrow doubtfully. "How much do you know about Thor and Loki, Steve?" Bruce asked.

"Not much. You?"

For a second, Bruce hesitated. Finally, though, he admitted, "Nothing."


	4. Chapter 4

Hello again! Thank you to everyone who's been reading this! I really appreciate the reviews I've gotten as well. They're always welcome. I truly value your feedback as you read. :-)

Here, we're back in the past on Asgard, keeping up with that storyline. That being said, enjoy!

* * *

_Sif had marched straight out of the dungeons, trying to forget every trace of tears and – Odin forbid – that myriad of emotions that had wracked her as she stood before Loki's door. The bottled fury didn't lessen throughout the walk back to her room in the palace. It didn't fade even after she had slammed her heavy wooden door with a resounding bang that had probably woken all the late risers in the court. She still burned inside, even after she picked up a golden vase full of calla lilies and hurled it at the wall, the metal denting unattractively and the flowers spilling out onto the flagstone floor._

_Sometimes she hated being right._

_She almost regretted going to see him. She definitely regretted speaking to him as she had. If he hadn't been in enchanted chains behind a magicked door, she would have boxed his ears. She would have elbowed him in his solar plexus, knocking the air out of his lungs. She would have blackened both of his eyes and broken his perfect, straight nose. She would have gone after him with the dagger – the one he had given her when they were children. As she paced her room, she imagined several scenes that depicted what could have happened, had they both been free – things she would have done._

_But he was in prison. And rightly so, she told herself, as if the repeated thought would eventually convince her to hate him, the remnants of his actions festering in her heart until she had no choice but to loathe his every breath._

_She yelled in frustration, tearing her hair out of its braid and tangling the dark strands furiously with her agitated fingers. Why had she spoken to him as she had? What had come over her? There was no reason for such sentimentality between them. What had possessed her to go to the dungeon a dozen times in two days, just checking to see if she could go in? They'd told her! The guards had said when she would be allowed to see him, and yet she had returned like an anxious child. And to think that she had spent the entire night in a state of sleeplessness before finally bolting out of the palace at dawn's first light to try her luck once more._

_It was inexcusable._

_She stopped pacing and stood stock-still, her breath still heaving as it did in the midst of a war. But she was not fighting. A small nudging in the back of her mind challenged her, asking her what she actually was doing, if not fiercely battling something._

_But she wasn't. This was not war, and nor was it anything closely related._

_There was a quiet knock at her door._

_For a moment, she contemplated screaming for the visitor to go away – to leave her alone! But she stopped herself before she could, remembering that she had to set an example for others, regardless of her unbridled irritation. She took a deep breath, eyes closed, trying to calm her upset senses. Once she felt certain that she wouldn't lash out at whomever it was at the door, she reached for the handle._

_Thor waited patiently on the other side, looking more than slightly worse for the wear. She was about to comment, but thought better of it, seeing as she probably did not look excessively beautiful herself. He prevented a long deliberation on her part, though, speaking first. "Lady Sif."_

_"Thor."_

_He stared at her for a moment, and she amended tartly, "Prince Thor. Forgive me."_

_Raising his eyebrows at her, he said, "I was just observing your state." His blue eyes – dulled by far too long a time without proper sleep – scanned her up and down more pointedly._

_"I realize that I hardly appear presentable," she replied, unable to entirely keep the bitterness from her tone._

_"Neither do I, and I have been attending peace conferences across the Nine Realms."_

_She had to admit, he had a point. For a representation of Asgard, he was looking rather haggard. He sighed heavily and continued, "I wished to speak with you regarding my brother."_

_Sif balked immediately at the mention of the fallen prince – as he had come to be known – her face growing cold and inaccessible. Yet, because Thor was Prince and because he was, more importantly, her friend, she bit, "I shall tell you what I can."_

_"I have heard that you visited him."_

_She neither confirmed nor denied, but her silence was enough of a response for Thor to know that she had indeed been to see his brother._

_Thor hesitated with his next question, turning the words over in his mouth like a new food. Finally, he said, "Did you get to speak with Loki?"_

_Sif's ears both perked and closed at the mention of his name. She knew Thor had intentionally used it, though his purpose was not to further confuse her rather whiplash thoughts. She knew exactly why he had used it, so, when she replied, "Perhaps," she knew the darkness that came over his face was warranted._

_"Perhaps?" he repeated._

_She took a step back from the door, granting him entry, getting the daunting idea that this conversation would be a long one. Thor sank heavily onto her bed without being invited, though she cared not what he did._

_"I think I spoke to him," she said quietly, remembering the deadness in his face, despite their words. "He seemed to listen."_

_"What did you say?"_

_Thor had meant the question in the best of ways, his nature far from prying or invasive, yet she took it as a knife to her stomach. Her words spoken without thought in the stillness of the dungeon rushed back to her, despite her best attempts to forget them entirely, and the memory almost made her sick. She swallowed hard, heart kicking strangely in her chest; she had never been as adept at lying as the Silvertongue._

_She almost hoped that Thor would notice her discomfort, but the idea left her as quickly as it had come; Thor would never see her struggle to edit her thoughts. Loki would – and he would call her on it. But Thor? Never. He was much safer._

_Sif took a breath, holding it in for a moment, before the words tumbled out on the wave of her exhale. "I told him a great many things. Whether he chooses to believe them is out of my hands."_

_For a second, Thor just looked at her. Then, his eyes drifted down to her right wrist, and his large hand lifted hers, his thumb and forefinger delicately pinching a thin, black cord that she had tied there. It was so long that it wrapped twice around her wrist before settling into a thick knot that had kept it secured through many training exercises and battles alike. Sif wondered with a brief and unexplainable pang of terror if Thor knew the history associated with the slim band of leather; from the way he looked at it, she surmised with relief that there were still aspects he did not understand, though he could probably guess rather accurately at the trinket's origin._

_His blonde brow knit as he considered the only piece of jewelry Sif made a habit of wearing – more so, the only article to stay on her person at all times. Granted, she could not remove it if she wished to, for the knot had been tied far too securely. But Sif alone knew that, should she lose it, she would feel naked as a babe._

_"This –"Thor's voice jerked Sif from her imaginings. When his eyes rose to meet hers, they were the most agonizing combination of sorrow and weariness – something with which she could truly identify. "You mourn him," Thor stated softly._

_Sif held her head higher, trying desperately to ignore the slight irregularity of breathing that had weaseled its way into her rhythm. "Yes," she said simply, taking care to keep her face bland and her voice neutral._

_Thor gave a strained chuckle, the sound raw, as if his larynx was unused to the action of laughing. "And I was under the impression that the pair of you abhorred one another."_

_Her face grew a trifle too warm for her taste; she had never hated Loki. They had merely had a unique way of expressing their friendship. When he called her names, she would hit him – quite hard, for a young lady of the court. When she got cocky, his words and quips would cut her down to size immediately. Theirs had been an interesting childhood, and, grown-up as they had pretended to be before Loki's fall, such slights could have been heard from both parties on occasion, when they thought every ear was listening elsewhere and every eye was turned aside._

_It suddenly dawned on her with such an intensity that it made her ache inside that she wanted nothing more than to hear him call her a "leaden-tongued, steel-veined, hard-hearted brute who is so infatuated with her sword that she remains clueless as to the finer points of battle." He had told her as much once before, and it surprised her that she remembered it word-for-word. She had, after all, been quite offended (though she would never admit to realizing the truth in such a statement later on)._

_"No," was all she could bring herself to say to Thor. When the silence that followed grew thick, she added, "We have never held true dislike for one another. Although, I can see where my bruised ego and his bruised body might suggest otherwise."_

_Thor gave a grim smile at the analogy, remembering the scenes all too well; he himself had even been involved on more than one occasion. Almost immediately, though, his shadow of a smile faded, and he asked, "What did he tell you?"_

_She thought for a long moment, recalling his words clear as day in her mind. Finally, she settled with saying, "Nothing."_

_"He would not speak?"_

_Sif shook her head. "No, he spoke," she said, "but he told me very little. Instead, he made queries." Confusion muddled her face as she thought over his questions. "I think he has lived for so long on the foundation of his own answers that, when they began to crumble, he sought those of another."_

_Thor nodded, but she could see the concern in his eyes. "Will you go to him again?" he asked, his voice small when compared to his body._

_"I don't know," she returned. "If you think he wishes it."_

_"I think he will always wish for a familiar face," Thor said, giving her shoulder a kind squeeze before rising and leaving her alone once more._


	5. Chapter 5

_Hello readers! Thank you for staying with this story so far! I hope you're enjoying it. Any and all feedback is welcome, and I greatly appreciate it!_

_We're back in the present in Stark Tower for this chapter. Fair warning, I am a bit of a car aficionado, so there will be a little bit of technical jargon throughout this part. You'll see. Nothing too crazy; I promise. Anyway, please go ahead and read on!_

* * *

Tony may have invented a robot butler to run his house, doing everything from cleaning to managing phone calls, but he always worked on his cars by hand. He had never truly lost his deep love for the feeling of axle grease under his fingernails, even after billions of dollars and the accompanying fame. The Ferrari F430 Coupe was the perfect tinker-toy for one of the world's best minds.

He was deep into the bowels of the engine, negotiating all eight cylinders with deft aptitude, both of his forearms streaked with the delightful mixture of sweat and motor oil. He reached blindly back with the hand that he deemed marginally cleaner to grab a wrench from his tool kit, looking up for only a second to ensure that he had the right size. Once his head was back under the hood, he continued his work with the kind of fervor that could only be fuelled by classic rock and S-belts.

"Chassis needs realignment," he muttered to himself, making a mental note to look at the undercarriage once he finished his tune-up.

The especially epic guitar riff at the beginning of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" wailed through his speakers –which were almost as tricked-out as his Ferrari. Pepper had been good enough to bring him a can of Coke and a glass not too long ago, and, as he reached for his drink, he straightened up, his back cracking. The sound was like Velcro pulling apart, mercifully drowned out by the music that blared at a volume set to just-shy-of-obnoxious.

He surveyed his work, contemplating taking a short break. He needed to get _something_ ready for Fury so he wouldn't look like a complete slacker when the time came.

"_Sir,"_ JARVIS interrupted his thought process, _"you have a visitor."_

"Where?" Tony asked, wiping his hands off on a rag.

"_Your front door, sir."_

Tony groaned, tossing the rag down on top of his tools and kicking the metal box for good measure. "I thought we were initiating Phantom Protocol," he said.

"_We are, sir, but that does not prevent people from finding our front door."_

"But the whole point was to cover the front with retrograde reflection panels so we're invisible."

"_We decided against that when you couldn't find your own tower, sir."_

Tony groaned again. "Damn. JAVRIS, did I invite anyone today?"

"_No, sir."_

"Did Pepper?"

"_No, sir."_

"Great." He sighed. Now was not the time for this. Not with Fury breathing down his neck about the city's reconstruction. He wondered fleetingly if Pepper had his checkbook handy; he really was not in the mood to deal with anybody today, and he would pay them generously if they would only leave him alone. Fury was enough; he didn't need anybody else jumping down his throat.

He trudged up the stairs, purposefully taking his time. His Aerosmith tee shirt and old jeans were both smeared with oil, but he was hardly concerned. Maybe, if he was lucky, his general appearance would put anybody off.

Outside the door, he saw the blurred silhouette of someone both completely familiar and completely not. He squinted through the frosted, warped glass that was meant to obscure anybody's view into the massive house – a great plan that backfired every time he tried to see who was on the other side. The sight made his hand hesitate over the knob.

When he did pull the door open, he wished that he was wearing something a little bit nicer than his oil-splattered clothing. A woman stood on the other side, gazing away from him like she was oblivious to the fact that he had answered the door. He ran a greasy hand through his unbrushed hair, asking, "Can I help you?" For once in his life, he tried not to seem sarcastic.

At the sound of his voice, the woman faced him, fixing him with a pair of sharp, intelligent eyes. Her expression was vaguely pained as she surveyed him, head to toes and back again. Once again, he kicked himself for his appearance; here she was, looking like the definition of polished class, and he was sporting Armor-All.

"Unfortunately," she drawled, her British accent catching his ear immediately, "yes."

When Tony didn't move, instead waiting awkwardly for her to say her piece, she sighed. "Might I come inside?"

"That depends on why you're here," Tony said, trying very hard not to be rude. "You can start with your name."

Her eyebrows rose elegantly, though Tony couldn't shake the feeling that she was mocking him for some reason. "Of course," she said flippantly. "Call me Elizabeth." Tony waited, but she never held out her hand for a shake.

"You forgot the part about why you're here," Tony repeated when she offered no more. Something seemed very strange about her, and, though Tony could hardly identify it, he certainly didn't feel as easy around her as he generally did when faced with beautiful women.

Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder, almost furtively, before leaning slightly forward. "I was sent to help the Avengers," she said quietly.

For a moment, Tony was stunned into silence. Nobody spoke of the Avengers unless they were working for SHIELD or were part of the coalition themselves. To everybody else, they were simply heroes. "Who sent you?" Tony asked, all pleasantries gone. "Fury?"

She scoffed. "I was sent by men higher than your Nicholas Fury could ever hope to become. Now may I be granted entry?"

Tony stood and gawked at her – with her self-confident mannerisms and frankly quite pretty face. She was definitely scarier than Fury, Tony decided. He wanted to tell her that she should leave right now, before the rest of his team saw her. Instead, he found himself stepping aside.

Elizabeth dipped her dark head once in thanks, hands clasped easily behind her back, strolling through the doorway like she owned the place. "You're Tony Stark, then?" she asked, though her tone said that she already knew the answer quite well.

"Yeah," Tony replied.

She nodded again, this time with understanding; Tony tried to angle himself to see her face more clearly, but she never gave him more than a sidelong glance, her expression always unreadable. "It's rather dignified from the inside," she said, gesturing easily to the décor and architecture of the tower.

"Yeah," repeated Tony, unsure as to how he should walk around this woman who seemed like, if cut, she would bleed mystery. He cleared his throat. "So, I, uh, haven't really seen you around much."

When she looked at him, he almost immediately regretted speaking at all. She wasn't angry, but she seemed quite derisive. "No, I can assure you of that much myself. It has, at least, been some time since I last saw you, though you would not recognize me." She wandered a few paces and peered down the nearest hall, and Tony immediately began scrolling through mental lists of women, trying to remember if she had ever been one of them. "Tell me Stark," she said over her shoulder, breaking his concentration, "has there been any word from Thor Odinson of Asgard?"

The question took Tony aback; fewer people knew the name of Thor's planet of origin than knew the title "SHIELD." Still, he merely shrugged. "Nope. I'm assuming everything's going alright, though. No more aliens down here, if that's what you mean."

Elizabeth did not look at Tony as she asked, "And has there been anything said of his brother, Loki?"

The mention of his old foe made the hairs on the back of Tony's neck bristle. "No," he answered, none too sharply. "And we all like it that way."

She gave a small hum in agreement, though she still kept her face turned away. Tony only saw the edge of her expression, but he could have sworn that something different had shown up at the mention of the Trickster who had so decimated the earth not long ago.

"He was an arrogant –"

"I know." She cut him off sharply.

Tony lifted his hands and took a step back. "Sorry," he said. "What do you care, anyway?"

Finally, Elizabeth faced him straight-on. "I'm under orders to fix what Loki has broken."

Tony scoffed at that. "That's one hell of a job, sweetheart," he said.

She gave a long, almost rueful sigh. "Believe me," she replied, "I know."


	6. Chapter 6

Hello again! It's that time of week: story update day! I always get very excited to update this fic, so thank you for reading it and sticking with it thus far. Things are starting to get rolling in New York with the addition of the new character, but we're going to let her get herself situated and instead check in on Asgard for a chapter. This is the past, but we're slowly working our way up to the present. Soon, the italicized chapters will go away for good, I promise. :-)

This is a slightly longer chapter than some of the ones I've previously posted, so I hope you like it! Feel free to message me or write a review if you'd like; I always appreciate the feedback. Enjoy!

* * *

_"No, Loki."_

_The memory was so ripe that he could have sworn that he was actually hearing it. Only he couldn't be. Loki looked out to the corridor beyond his cell door just to be certain that he was alone. The sound of Odin's words still rang in his ears, as fresh as the day they had been uttered. Inside his mind, they tumbled around with other words from other mouths, including many from his own:_

_"What, because I – I – I am the monster parents tell their children about at night?"_

_"Is it madness? Is it? Is it?"_

_"You could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the throne of Asgard!"_

_"I only ever wanted to be your equal!"_

_"Mewling quim."_

_"Child at prayer."_

_"What's the matter? Silver tongue turned to lead?"_

_That last made him steam with fury. He knew it was petty, to fume over such a simple, ill-executed insult, but it still burned him inside, to feel the condemnation behind it: You think you're special, but you're just not._

_Loki wanted to scream to anyone who would listen that he knew it. He had learned as much throughout his entire life, living alongside his brother – or rather, half a step behind. Just enough to remain in the shadow cast by the bigger man._

_He pulled his knees up to his chest and tucked his head, resting his forehead on his kneecaps like he had done when he was younger. He wanted to disappear. There were times still when he wished that his plummet from the Bifrost all that time ago had actually killed him; even if it had only pulled him away from the living world, depositing him into the Void to rot for eternity, he would have taken it._

_The imminent punishment did not frighten him, nor did any manner of retribution. He had faced untold amounts of both as a child, as payment for his mischievous ways. Instead, for the second time in his life, he feared looking into a mirror._

_The first time had been when he had realized his true parentage and race – entirely by mistake, a fact which made the realization sting even more. But then, he had only feared that which lay behind the careful façade of Asgardian prince. Something blue and cold and terrible that had been hidden from him all his life and lurked beyond the face he had come to know so well._

_Now, all the proof of his heritage he needed was the trail of decay that he left behind him._

_How like a Frost Giant. It made him want to spit._

_He squeezed his eyes shut, praying that nobody stood on the other side of the bars, looking in on him and waiting to offer their condemnation. He was a failure to both Asgard and Jotunheim – a runt of a Giant and a disappointment of a prince._

_He knew it._

_Out in the shadowy corridor, someone stood, watching him with eyes that mourned – not cried, but mourned – as calloused fingers twisted themselves in a thin black cord tied securely around a slim, feminine wrist._

_"Loki," she said quietly._

_He tensed at the sound of the voice, briefly wondering if it was in his head or outside of it. The echo against the prison walls told him that he hadn't imagined the word, as merciful as that would have been._

_He lifted his head, which had become as heavy as a bag full of rocks, and slowly looked to the cell door. When he saw her standing there, his face colored a shade redder, both out of embarrassment and frustration. "What?" he hissed, ashamed that she had discovered him in such a defeated position. How he ached for magic enough to conjure a glamor projection._

_At his recognition, however bitter, Sif took a step closer to the cell. "I come with a request," she told him, voice light but falsely so._

_Loki made to stiffly rise, but Sif sat down cross-legged on the floor outside the door, silently soothing his wounded pride, bidding him stay put. For a second, he eyed her with confusion, as though he didn't trust her intentions despite their solidarity throughout life thus far. Then, once it became apparent that she was not about to move, he sat up straighter and turned to her, mirroring her posture on the opposite side of the grating. He waited, listening._

_She pulled a small but sharp dagger from her tunic, holding it up by the blade. His face showed the recognition before he had a chance to ensure composure; she smiled, though her eyes did not grow any happier. "Fandral tells me that my hair has grown too long for my face," she said simply. "Seeing as you were the last person to cut it, I was hoping that you might be kind enough to do it once more."_

_He stared at the dagger in her fingers, taking in the rubies and golden filigree laid into the handle. It was practically a relic, from so long ago. Sif had been a blonde before he had shorn her beautiful hair from her head. Now, her inky tresses – quite unusual for the Aesir – looked more like Loki's own than either of them had ever anticipated. He felt time dragging on the longer he looked, but he could do nothing else in the face of all the things that dagger dredged out of his memories, and, slowly, he felt his frustration begin to melt into something sadder. That had been so very, very long ago._

_Reaching through the bars and taking the knife carefully, he murmured, "I cannot believe you still have this." He turned the blade over in his hands, running his thumb along the flat, observing the way it shone. Just as it had before._

_She had cleaned it since then. Polished this silly thing with the same care and precision with which she polished her beloved glaive. The realization struck him with more force than he had prepared himself to take._

_Sif shrugged apathetically. "Why wouldn't still have it? It's a perfectly usable blade."_

_He scoffed as he turned the thing over in his hands, sliding his thumb along the edge and generally ignoring the way it pressed painfully into his skin. She had sharpened it too, apparently. "It's far too delicate for most practical uses, and not balanced at all for throwing."_

_"Well," Sif bristled slightly, "perhaps I just like it."_

_Loki tried not to think too hard about that; she certainly didn't have any sort of attachment to the thing. Of course, that day had been a fairly monumental one in her life, but she was a warrior. Mementos were meaningless as dust over a battlefield. She probably simply admired the craftsmanship of such a beautiful weapon. It was a prince's dagger, and it knew it, sparkling and dazzling enough in the sun to blind. She probably enjoyed the weight of it in her hand, too. It was rather heavy for its size, giving the wielder more control over the considerably lighter blade._

_He hadn't held it since the day he had cut her hair, and, feeling the cool, heady metal pleasantly sing in his hand again, he wondered why he had ever given it up. He had always been rather fond of it. He looked and looked at it, and he felt Sif watching him with the sort of clarity that could only be afforded to someone who had been there when the memories had been made. He closed his fingers around the hilt, seeing phantom glints from the rubies, as if they were out in the sun and not stuck belowground in a lightless dungeon. Curls the color and texture of corn silk littered his forearm, clinging to the black leather and hiding against his fair skin. He glanced up at Sif, and he saw her younger, caught somewhere between girl and woman, not a trace of hair left on her head._

_Then, he blinked, and Sif went back to having long, dark hair, her days of baldness eons behind her. His arm was clean, not a single blonde hair anywhere to be found, and the rubies in the dagger sat there, dull and lifeless as they should be in this darkness._

_"Sorry," he muttered. "I was just –"_

_"Me too," Sif told him with a sigh. "Things were simpler then, weren't they?"_

_At first, he didn't reply. He knew she was right. Turning the dagger over and over in his hands, he remembered. His enchanted chains rattled, a bitter reminder of his situation, but, for the first time in many days, he didn't hear it. He only heard her laughter, ringing out delightfully against the golden walls of the palace, as it had long ago, when life had been easy and Sif had laughed more often. When he had played tricks with her and on her, and she had laughed at him, and he with her, until their sides ached, and they had collapsed against each other in a heap of robes and armor and dark hair that fell, graceless, in their eyes._

_That felt like another life, belonging to other people – a young warrior with her whole life ahead of her and a proper Aesir prince with a bright future._

_Nothing of that showed in Sif's face now, and he was certain his own expression was no better._

_In an effort to occupy his mind with something – anything – else, he motioned for her to turn around, and she obeyed wordlessly. She ran her hands behind her neck, spilling her hair down her back like a cape of raven's feathers. Her chin was held high, but Loki could sense the tension in her body; something also told him that it had nothing to do with having her hair cut, considering how calm she had been last time. He reached through the bars, pinching a lock tightly enough to feel its texture but loosely enough to let it move a bit. "How short would you like it?" he asked._

_"I leave that up to your good judgment," she replied, but he could hear in her voice the tautness he saw in the rest of her._

_He responded by running the blade down the flat of her cheek and watching the gooseflesh ripple on her collarbone. "Are you certain you trust me with a blade this close to your precious neck?" he said bluntly._

_She took a breath, and then she said, "I trusted you before, didn't I?"_

_He fingered her hair thoughtfully, despite the question being rhetorical. Then, sliding his hand that pinched her hair down and stopping about an inch from the end, he poised the knife to slice. It didn't surprise him that his hands trembled just a bit; they had shivered like the wings of an insect when last he had cut her hair. He hesitated for only a moment longer, breathing in to steady himself, and then he made the first cut._

_Now, strands of black fell on top of his hand._

_He methodically made his way around her head, getting every piece of hair and cutting off the last inch or so. He would never tell her so, but he liked her hair long. If he had to take something, he would only take the bear minimum, leaving her with hair not so different from when she had first come to his cell._

_Gradually, the tightness across her shoulders dissolved, and she seemed to breathe a bit easier; still, neither of them said a word as he worked._

_By the time he was finished, the stone floor was littered with small strands of black that almost blended into the shadows around them. He surveyed his handiwork: not exactly straight and not truly even, but passable. Possibly impressive, considering that he was working through the iron latticework of the cell door. He found one chunk that had somehow avoided his knife and cut it too, determining his job done and wiping the blade on his shirtsleeve to remove any lingering pieces of hair._

_"Thank you," Sif said, turning back around, and, in response, he passed the dagger back through the prison door – albeit a little hesitantly, now that he had touched the old, familiar thing once more. She eyed him curiously for a moment, slowly hooking her fingers through the bars. She didn't smile, and her face grew cloudier by the second._

_"You did not only come so that I would cut your hair," he said, grim and unwelcome realization dawning._

_When she shook her head, it was no surprise. "I bring word from your father regarding your trial." Loki tensed, but he did not otherwise react. "It is to be held at dawn on the day after tomorrow." She closed her eyes, as if willing herself the strength to finish this speech – as if to forget that her closest friend was going on trial in less than two days. "Thor and the Warriors Three will be there. As will I. If they call for witnesses, Loki, we must be honest."_

_He nodded. "Of course." But the words hurt. Not because his friends may have to condemn him, but because, somewhere inside him, he knew that he had earned every moment of it. He took a breath and looked up at her, trying his hardest to give her a convincing smirk. "Just try not to be too harsh with your adjectives," he said._

_Sif scoffed, though there was no humor in it. "I am hardly as talented a commander of words as you." She spun the dagger absently on the prison floor, saying, "I prefer to argue or convince with steel."_

_"Ah, well, please refrain from your steel at the trial as well." He grimaced, and she almost smiled. After a tense moment shouldered its way clumsily between them, he leaned close to the bars and scrutinized her. "Do you truly not despise me?" he asked quietly – candidly._

_"You know I cannot hate you." The teasing edge she tried to give her voice only came off as heavy and melancholy._

_"Even though you have every reason in the world to do so."_

_"So it would seem," she mused, looking at the dagger simply so that she would not have to look at him. "And yet, here we are." He hummed in agreement, though he was still bewildered by it. With a small sigh, she turned to the side and leaned her shoulder against the bars, crossing her arms against a chill that had arisen not from the atmosphere, but from something Loki guessed was inside her. He mirrored the turn, facing her but not looking at her. She stayed silent for a moment, and Loki's fingers found their way through the lowest squares in the lattice, tracing the edges of the dagger absently. "What do you anticipate?" Sif asked softly._

_He knew she meant the trial, though he had nothing to offer her in the way of predictions. Frigga was the prophetess, and he was the liar. So he lied. "I am certain it cannot be too terrible."_

_Sif didn't seem to notice as he fiddled with the knife. He knew he should probably leave it alone, but it offered him a small comfort at which he grasped with everything he had. So he fiddled. Eventually, she muttered, "I only hope your mouth remains unsewn this time."_

_Over the largest ruby in the hilt, his hand abruptly froze. Everything within him balked at the memory of the magicked thread pulling its way through the skin around his lips, puncturing them, closing them. He recalled the taste of so much blood in his mouth that it had almost choked him in his attempts to avoid swallowing. There was the stab of the needle, though that was not the worst of it; feeling the thread tug at his open skin as it jerked along – that had been the part that had almost been his undoing._

_"As do I," he told her darkly. "It was far from pleasant."_

_She glanced up to look at him, leaning closer, inspecting him with a sharp eye. "I never knew you had scars," she whispered, putting a finger through the grate to touch the corner of his mouth, where garish speckles lined his lips in a sickening, jagged echo of the twine that had once rendered his lying tongue mute._

_He couldn't look at her as he replied, "I normally enchant them so that they don't show."_

_Her brow creased as she considered them, trailing her chipped fingernail along the sharp lines, connecting the dots. Her touch was gentle, but the scars ached as though they were fresh instead of many decades old. After a moment, she pulled her hand back through to her own side. "I will never understand how you were able to endure that torture and yet remain silent. I would have cried out at least once – in anger, if nothing else."_

_His mouth hurt at the merest mention of the golden thread, and he felt so much weight in her gaze that he had to close his eyes to avoid it. He took a breath and said, "I am a fair bit stronger than people are wont to believe."_

_"I never thought you weak," she said softly, and he saw that she wore remembered pain in her eyes; she had been the one to remove the stitches from his lips once his silence had been served. At the time, he had almost cringed to see her jaw set like she was going to war as her trembling hands loosed the thread – the removal far more painful than the insertion. He would have crumbled before her, would the action not have shattered her resolve. But, as she sat opposite him in the dungeon, so many years later, he saw her before him, open and vulnerable once more. He wanted to thank her, but he stayed quiet._

_They sat for a while in comfortable, heavy silence. That had always been one of the things that Loki had valued about Sif; the two of them could pass hours on end in each other's company but without speaking a word, and they would call that time well-spent. He didn't know how long they stayed there, but when she muttered that she should be going back before she was missed and started to rise, it was too soon._

_He pulled the dagger through to his side, standing as well. He ran his hand over the entire thing once more and, without looking at her, said, "If I asked, would you do me a favor?"_

_"I owe you nothing, Odinson," she said, a bit of her usual brusqueness finding its way back into her voice. At the mention of his adoptive surname, he glanced up, confused, and saw that she was well aware of what she had said, and she was not about to amend her statement. A tiny light of kindness welled in her eyes, and she crossed her arms. "That depends very greatly on what you need," she told him, and he saw quiet friendship in her face._

_"Would you please return to me once more before the trial?" He held the dagger out to her through the grated door, trying to hide how much he hoped she would agree to do this for him._

_She took the knife right away, stowing it back up her sleeve; then, she was quiet for a long moment, looking perfectly impassive. Then, she gave a little nod. "You have my word," she told him._

_A smile tugged at his scarred lips. "Thank you," he said._

_For a second, she watched him. Then, she muttered, "It's been far too long since you've smiled." With that, she turned and made her way back down the hallway. He listened until he couldn't hear her footsteps any longer, and then he raised a hand to his own mouth, feeling the raised bumps that ringed his lips where the golden thread had once laced through the skin. He hadn't even been to trial before receiving such a punishment. He hated to imagine what they had in store for him now._


	7. Chapter 7

_Happy Monday, guys! Thanks to all who are following/favorite-ing my story! I'm honestly touched that people are reading it and enjoying it. I wrote it for my own enjoyment, so I'm glad I'm not the only one. :-)_

_In other news, we're back in the present, at Stark Tower, where a strange OC has arrived with a bad attitude and vague instructions. Tony had some mixed feelings upon meeting her; how will the rest of the team react?  
_

* * *

"And this will be your room," Pepper said, opening the door to one of the many guest bedrooms and showing Elizabeth inside. It was one of the nicer rooms, with its own bathroom and everything. "I didn't get a chance to lay out fresh towels or anything, but I can go get them if you want."

Elizabeth looked around the room, noticing everything in it. "Yes, that would be nice," she told Pepper, who nodded and immediately headed out the door. Elizabeth stopped her before she got too far, though. "And could you bring back a spare sheet?" Again, Pepper smiled and nodded, hurrying off down the hallway.

As soon as she was alone, Elizabeth meandered around the room, hands clasped casually behind her back. "Well," she said to herself, "here I am." She wondered briefly why she wasn't happier about that. A small voice in the back of her mind reminded her that this was also no vacation; she was here to do a job – and not an easy one at that.

Honestly, she hadn't known what she should expect from a bedroom at Stark Tower. The whole place was very unlike anything she had ever seen before – very sleek and metallic with strange bits of technology that she had never imagined situated around every corner as though they were commonplace. But her room was much less computerized than the rest of the building, making it much more manageable for her. She likely could learn to use the complex machines all around the house, but she would prefer not to waste the time on something such as that.

She sighed, but no tension left her.

The goal was to complete the task she had been given in the shortest amount of time possible. To do that, she would require the Avengers' cooperation. If nothing else, she had to use them as vehicles by which she could achieve her means. Because _how_ she accomplished her task was unimportant.

Her orders had simply been to "fix what Loki broke." That was all. She started pacing the room in frustration at what she imagined was quite possibly the vaguest set of instructions ever given. What was she supposed to do with that? She reasoned that she had been sent to the Avengers because she would need their help (though she hated to admit that she needed help with anything, much less that of a group of glorified freaks and assassins). But how exactly was she supposed to get them to do what she needed them to do? And what exactly was she supposed to be fixing? Loki broke a lot of things, after all.

She hissed a long breath through her nose and glanced around the room once more. She checked the hallway for any sign of Pepper, and, once she was convinced she was alone, she cautiously looked into the mirror. Her face stared back, looking just as lost and confused as she felt. "You're looking a little rough there, Lizzy," she told herself sardonically, watching the mouth in the mirror move in tandem with hers. She ran a hand over her face, excusing her slightly disheveled appearance for once in her life; she had had a very long morning, after all.

Slowly, she drew away from the glass, watching as the imperfections in her reflection diminished the further away she moved. Then, she wandered lazily around the corner and peered into the adjoining bathroom. It, like the bedroom, was sparsely decorated but properly furnished.

She was just ducking back out of the bathroom again when Pepper came back with a stack of towels, which she set on the bed. "Here's your extra sheet," she told her, pulling a plain white piece of linen from the top of the stack. "Do you think that'll work?"

She smiled and said, "It will do beautifully. Thank you." She would put it over the mirror once Pepper left again.

The red haired woman smiled back at her, her eyes warm and kind. "Is there anything else I can get you?" she asked with the air of someone who genuinely wanted her to be comfortable. Elizabeth was not used to this kind of hospitality. She had experienced it before, but it had always been at least a little forced. Now, Pepper was simply offering to help her out of some sense of goodness that was foreign to Elizabeth. She was careful not to let herself read too much into it.

"No thank you," she said, and Pepper smiled again. That same warm, perplexing smile.

"Between you and me," Pepper said somewhat quietly, "I think it'll be nice to have another woman around. It's always just been me and Natasha with the four guys. Natasha can hold her own with just about anybody, but it's still nice to be a little less outnumbered."

Elizabeth nodded; she understood the concept well enough. "Who stays here normally?" she asked.

"Me and Tony, Bruce, Steve, Clint, and Natasha." She shrugged. "It sounds like a lot of people, but it really doesn't feel like it."

"Why is that?"

"Well, for starters, this place is big. And then Clint and Natasha are out a lot because they work. Tony and Bruce are usually locked away in their labs doing whatever it is scientists do between snack breaks. So, around the tower all day, every day is normally just me and Steve. But I'm running a business, and Steve keeps busy." She smiled at Elizabeth in a friendly, longsuffering way, as if to suggest that she'd like to see more of her friends than she does at present. "Are you planning on being around much?" she asked.

"I'm not certain," Elizabeth replied, and it was the truth. She had no idea how much she would actually be around the tower. And, even when she was there, how often would she be out of her room? How much time could she afford to throw toward social interaction when she was in such a hurry to finish her one job? Would she even want to interact with the Avengers anyway? Right now, her mind was telling her _absolutely not_, but she would be forced to either way, wouldn't she?

"Well," Pepper said, bringing her attention back to the conversation, "we should get to know each other a little better. You seem nice."

Elizabeth blinked at her for a moment. _Nice?_ her mind asked incredulously. Finally, she dragged a smile onto her face, saying "Thank you" and choosing not to let her thoughts linger here either.

"Hey, it's Thursday," Pepper said, and Elizabeth groaned inwardly. Thursday was her least favorite day of the week. "On Fridays, Natasha has off and Clint takes the afternoon shift, so we usually all hang out together on Thursday nights. Order some pizza, watch _Survivor_. You know. That sort of thing. I'm sure you'd be more than welcome if you wanted to join us."

Elizabeth stared at Pepper for a moment, utterly convinced that the woman had been inviting her strictly out of convention. But there was nothing but true, heartfelt offering in her face. She nodded once, not letting on just how bewildered she was by the simplicity of Pepper and her kindness.

Pepper just said, "Hope to see you there," and Elizabeth was sure she somehow meant every word of it.

Then, Pepper caught her up in a quick hug – one which Elizabeth didn't recognize in time to return, so she just wound up standing stiffly, arms pinned to her sides, as the shorter woman did all the hugging – and, with a "Please make yourself at home," Pepper left the room.

For just a short while, Elizabeth stood, staring after her. She had only rarely met people like Pepper, she reasoned, and those meetings had not been any time recently. She had almost entirely forgotten how to react to someone like that.

Eventually, she shook it off, shoving the interaction to the back of her mind and instead picking up the sheet to cover the large mirror affixed to the vanity. The sheet was large enough to fold in half, so she did; the thicker it was, the smaller the chances of an unwanted reflection.

She took one more glance at her image in the mirror before she slipped the sheet over it, hiding it from view.

_Survivor_ night was a culture shock, to say the least.

Elizabeth had anticipated this, and she had very seriously debated sitting it out because of this knowledge. Still, she hadn't met all of the inhabitants of the tower, and she figured she may as well introduce herself. So she dragged herself out of her consuming thoughts regarding her purpose here in the first place, instead coaxing her face into an easy, nonchalant smile that would no doubt be well-received.

When she had first melted into the massive living room, nobody had noticed her; she thanked her quiet step and whatever higher power was on her side at the moment and took that extra minute or two to look around her at all the faces, trying to match them with names and letting herself slowly grow accustomed to the noise level. Finally, Pepper caught her eye, shooting her that disarmingly genuine smile again and breaking away from the conversation she was having with Tony to come talk to her.

"Oh, good!" she said. "I was afraid you weren't going to come see us."

Elizabeth smiled back a diplomatic sort of smile that only just softened her eyes. "For a while, so was I," she said quietly, so as not to draw attention to herself. "Who's whom?"

Pepper moved off through the room with the air of a tour guide on her first day at work. The music in the air was loud and hard, so she had to speak over it the further from the fringes they got. "Dr. Bruce Banner –" she indicated a man wearing a very neutral expression, but whose brown eyes were alarmingly deep and unfathomable, as though they belonged on a different face – one with more zest and less Zen. Talking to Dr. Banner was another man – taller, blonde hair perfectly combed save for a single lock that curled over his forehead in a charming, boyish sort of way – whom Pepper introduced as Captain Steve Rogers. They both stopped their conversation (something about a motorcycle, from what Elizabeth could gather) to say hello and shake hands with the newest addition to the tower. Thankfully, Pepper didn't give them enough time to ask her any questions before she moved on.

A man who had escaped Elizabeth's notice before was the next to be introduced. "Clint Barton," Pepper said, passing beside the couch on which he was lounging comfortably. "He works for SHIELD."

"You're not supposed to just tell people that," Barton said, sitting up and scowling at Pepper. Then, he looked at Elizabeth, and his face cleared. "Oh," he said. "_You're_ the one Tony told me about. The one who knows about SHIELD. Sent by someone higher than Fury."

Elizabeth nodded once in affirmation. "You can call me Elizabeth; it's shorter."

Clint must have caught the teasing note in her voice, because he almost smiled. He glanced at Pepper. "I like her sense of humor," he informed her. Then, to Elizabeth: "You keep up that sarcasm, we just might get along."

She smiled in response, but Pepper was already hurrying her along, explaining to her that Natasha should be getting off the elevator any minute now; she worked into the evening on Thursdays to make up for her taking a day off every Friday. When they circled back to Tony, he stepped behind the bar. "Normally, I can guess what people drink," he said to Elizabeth, "but you're being difficult. I can't decide whether you're a fruity umbrella-drink kind of girl or more of a red wine type."

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. "Neither, actually," she told him.

He leaned on the bar, eyeing her. "What do you drink?" he asked, half to himself and half to her.

"Would you like me to spoil it by telling you?" she asked suavely.

"No, hold on –" Tony stared hard at her for a second, puzzling very theatrically. Then, he threw up his hands and said, "I've got nothing. Go on; I love a good spoiler."

"What is the closest thing you've got to hard, heavy spiced ale?"

Tony stared at her for a beat, and then he turned around and opened the fridge, pulling out a beer, popping the top, and handing it to her. "Funny," he said. "I never would have pegged you as an ale person. Thor, sure. I mean, he's a Viking god and everything. He was probably drinking the stuff before he could chew solid food."

She scoffed, taking a sip to bury her not altogether humorous smirk. "I may surprise you about more than just what I drink," she said.

"I look forward to it," Tony said, grabbing another beer, this one for himself. As he took the first drink from the bottle, he asked, "What do you like on your pizza?"

Elizabeth just stared at him. "Pizza?" she asked after a moment.

"Yeah, you know, that round thing with the –" Tony pulled up short, realization dawning. "Oh my – you've never had pizza."

Suddenly, every conversation seemed to come to a screeching halt; the music seemed far too loud without the white noise of voices behind it, and it grated in her ears as everyone turned and looked at her, all wearing the same dumbfounded expression. She stared back, unwittingly defensive.

Clint slowly stood up from the couch, breaking the silence. "Hold up. You've _never_ had pizza?"

Elizabeth looked around and saw the same question echoed in every set of eyes in the room. She felt her face turn to plastic in an effort to avoid scowling at the accusatory manner in which they all silently gawked at her as if she was a freak in a side show. "No," she replied slowly, dragging out the word just to irk the shocked stares off of their faces.

Just as abruptly as they all stopped talking, they started up again, louder and more raucous than before, each talking over the others and to the others and to her. She vaguely caught snatches of their conversation – things like "sausage" and "peppers."

"You're in New York, sweetheart," Tony was saying beside her. "You're about to have some of the best pizza around."

In the midst of all the chaos, Elizabeth heard a faint _ding_, and a set of footsteps made their way into the noisy room. "What the hell –" a woman's voice began, before she was accosted by Clint, who explained that Elizabeth – the new girl standing by Tony and Pepper who knew about SHIELD, was sent by someone higher than Fury, and would be staying with them for a while – had never had pizza before. Then, Natasha' voice joined the mix, but she was speaking very clearly to Elizabeth herself. "Don't you ever let these idiots talk you into eating anchovies. You will regret it for the rest of your life." Then, with a tight, uncertain smile, the red-haired woman approached her, holding out her hand. "Natasha Romanoff," she said.

Elizabeth, expertly tuning out the chatter behind her, shook her hand. "Elizabeth. It's a pleasure."

"Not allowed to tell me your last name or something?" Natasha asked, face difficult to read.

With a flippant shrug, Elizabeth said, "My family name has been marred over the years by a series of idiots, and I prefer not to use it among friends."

Natasha's eyes narrowed at her, as though she wanted to question the logic behind Elizabeth's quiet refusal to elaborate on her name; after a second, though, she must have concluded that it wasn't worth pursuing at this point, because she folded her arms loosely and said, "You gonna watch _Survivor_ with us tonight?"

"Perhaps," Elizabeth replied. "I've never seen it, though."

One of Natasha's eyebrows quirked up halfheartedly. "Wow. Never had pizza, never seen _Survivor_ – it's positively un-American." Then, before Elizabeth had a chance to respond, she took half a step closer and said, "I would go for pepperoni and onion on the pizza," with a tiny grin.


	8. Chapter 8

Hello readers! This chapter is really short, but I promise longer ones are coming. :-) In the meantime, enjoy the briefness!

* * *

_Thor trudged back to the palace, already dreading the restlessness that plagued him so when he confined himself to his quarters. Spacious as they were, he still felt claustrophobic at the thought. He had delayed his return for as long as he could in good conscience, traipsing along the quiet, lethargic streets and past the ghostly houses that seemed to gape at him as he passed, shadows tricking his tired brain into seeing movement where there was none._

_He had walked in the woods also for a time – a very short time, once he realized that this was one of the few places that Loki had deemed his sanctuary. Thor vividly recalled childhood days when he had been unable to find his brother for such a length of time that he began to worry, though his parents knew well Loki's hiding places. But, even when he had asked them, they had refused to disclose the locations. Thor had taken this with a child's grain of salt – not fully understanding, but accepting begrudgingly simply because his parents bid him do so._

_Even now, centuries later and into adulthood, there were days when Thor would search for Loki, leaving no stone unturned or trapdoor unexplored. He would still come up empty. He knew not if Loki retained the same nooks as he had years before, but he had learned that, when his brother didn't wish to be found, it would be impossible to find him. And, should anybody stumble upon him by accident, his reaction would be volatile._

_With a shudder, he remembered how Loki had snapped at him earlier that night when he had visited the prison. His response had cut Thor to the quick, reminding him of those times as children when Loki had wanted to be alone, but Thor had hardly understood, instead insisting that they keep each other company. Loki had always become cold – frosty in his demeanor and short-tempered._

_Some things never truly changed._

_Thor glanced back the way he had come, glimpsing stretches of Asgardian town that seemed so placid in the foremost hours of morning. Despite everything that stood between him and the dungeon, all he could see was the stone outcropping in the rock with a bolted door, two guards standing sentry before it. All he could see was his brother, sitting in his cell, knowing in some way unique to his intelligence that dawn approached – and with it, his trial._

_He sighed and continued on, knowing not his direction or motivation – knowing nothing but his need for motion, monotonous and dull, to keep him from dwelling in the darker parts of his mind for too long. As long as he placed one foot in front of the other, he could keep the raging memories and fears at bay._

_As he neared the palace, he stopped abruptly. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw movement among the trees. When he looked, he was rewarded: a dark figure stole through the forest in the exact opposite direction that he had been moving._

_The hot-blooded hunter's instinct took him over, and he took a step closer to where the silhouette stood, temporarily still under the pale light of Asgard's moon. The person – for the image was humanoid in shape – seemed to be distracted by something in its hands. As Thor crept closer, he could see the head turning back and forth, the weight shifting between the palace and the path, the fingers drumming anxiously against the item cradled in the arms._

_Occasionally, the figure would take a step back toward the palace, only to stop again and reverse completely. It dawned on Thor as he snuck nearer that the person was debating something – likely something having to do with the object it held._

_He stood at the edge of the forest, now aware that the figure had its back to him. He could make out armor, though the person's overall build did not appear to be entirely threatening. Taking a quiet breath, Thor reached out and pushed away part of a bush to see more clearly, making a soft rustling sound in the process._

_At the quiet noise, the figure whirled around, and both of them became stiff with surprise._

_Sif stared back at Thor, eyes wide as stars. Her hair was down – an unusual thing for her – and she clasped a book tightly to her chest, her attempts to hide it in the folds of her arms more or less useless._

_For a moment, they both just breathed, gaping at each other. That moment stretched on until it became uncomfortable, and Sif's brow began to crease into a slight scowl. Thor awkwardly broke their gaze and let the bush snap back into place, concealing her once more, and, as soon as he had moved far enough away, he looked back and caught a glimpse of her running off in the direction of the prison._

_Thor knew that many things lay between his current vantage point and the dungeon; he also knew Sif, understanding her intent and immediately knowing that she would not be stopping until she was outside Loki's cell._

_He briefly wondered if he should have warned her about Loki's perturbed state, advising her to let a sleeping snake lie, lest she too wind up getting bitten. Yet something within him told him that she was already more than aware of this, and she still proceeded with the bravery of a soldier. Also, he granted, she may just be able to help him; women could sometimes do what men – even brothers – could not, even if they scarcely behaved as a lady at all._

_Thor hoped that Sif would be able to bring Loki as much peace as she could spare – he would need it in a few hours' time._


	9. Chapter 9

Sorry I'm a little late on this one! I'll be back next Monday for the next part!

For now, we're on Asgard again. This chapter is slightly longer than some of the others, but I hope you like it nonetheless!

* * *

_Since Thor had shown up and pulled his attention away from the path of the moon, Loki's sense of timing had fallen askew, only to be restored at the changing of the guard. As the guard changed next at dawn, it would then be too late._

_He wanted to pace his cell like an angry tiger, but he couldn't bring himself to move, instead clenching and unclenching his right hand and drumming a quick, staccato rhythm on his knee with his left. He couldn't pay attention to how his fingers trembled as they struck the kneecap like it was a musical instrument. He chose to ignore the way his fingernails dug into his palm, leaving purple crescents when he released his grip on nothing. It wasn't important, the way his eyes darted around, always landing on the barred door, though he tried to keep them distracted._

_She had given her word._

_He had no idea why it bothered him so; if she didn't come, it would hardly affect the decision in the court. It would have no bearing on his punishment or his conduct at the trial, and it certainly would not offer him any sort of release._

_But, upon hearing the hurried footsteps coming his way, he tensed, anticipating the new guard, preforming his rounds as was custom at dawn. His heart sank to somewhere more near his stomach, but his stomach made room for it by climbing into his throat; he felt like someone had just stuck him with a pin, causing all of his hopes to rush out of him like air from a balloon._

_He sighed, resigned, but not moving from his corner. If they wanted him, they would have to take him. He would go peacefully, but he refused to initiate the act._

"_Let it not be said that I have broken my word, Odinson."_

_At the voice, his head jerked up like he had been given a shot of electricity to his bones._

"_Sif!" he said, voice hoarse and a bit raspy from disuse. He had not uttered a word since she had left the last time, except for when Thor had come. The thought struck him; he had not done such a thing consciously. He had simply had no reason to speak when there was no one worth speaking to keeping him company. "I thought –"_

"_I know," she interrupted, her voice the most welcome sound in his head. She was already so close to the bars that he could have touched her, had he reached out, though he dared not do it, lest she vanish in a swish of the cloak of time and space, an image conjured from his own latent mind. And hallucinations would not have been a surprise to him at this point._

_He blinked at her once, twice, and said, "Thank you, Sif."_

_She waved his gratitude away, though he could see the miniscule smile that held onto his words, locking them away in the vaults of her mind in case she ever forgot that he was capable of appreciation. "I brought you something," she stated, holding up the large book she had carried from the palace. When Loki's eyes widened in recognition, she added, "I figured you might like to hear a story or two."_

_Before she could say anything else, he cocked an eyebrow at her over a disapproving eye. "You snuck into my chambers?"_

"_Of course not," she answered, sitting on the ground as she had the last time she had come to the dungeon. He saw a shadow cross her face briefly as he joined her on the flagstone floor. "Nobody has gone into your chambers since—well, since we thought you'd died. You had left it in the library, hidden in the usual place, accompanied by some other volume that looked exceptionally unexciting." She dismissed the matter with a wave of her hand, cracking the book open on her lap._

_Loki felt his face sear at her simple act of opening the thick, leather-bound book. "Nobody was ever meant to read this," he muttered._

"_Then you should have put it someplace I can't find," she said, flipping through the pages. "Now what would you like to hear?"_

_He just stared at her. "What are you trying to do, Sif?_

_She shrugged as she skimmed page after page. "Nothing, aside from passing the time" she told him with the sort of casualness that most often comes along with lies._

"_You're not trying to lure me into repentance with the glow of childhood stories, then?"_

"_Absolutely not," she said, the twinge of mistruth gone._

_He leaned closer to scrutinize her face, wondering where the lie went. She looked up, meeting his eyes as she would meet a challenge on the battlefield. He just stared at her._

_Eventually, she rolled her eyes. "I should like to see you smile again, if that's allowed," she snipped. "And, since there's nothing happy enough to discuss at present –" Without giving him a chance to protest, she cleared her throat and propped the book up on her thighs, reading. "'The moral of today: avoid Sigyn.'"_

_Loki cringed, but only faintly. "This one?" he asked "Sif, this one won't make me any happier."_

"_Well it does me, and it's short," she said._

"_There are others –"_

"_Yes," Sif acknowledged, "and all quite amusing I am sure." Still, though, she refused to turn the page or even consider reading another tale to him, instead resuming her current story, unable to entirely hide the grin on her face. "'We had barely moved past introductions when she tried to kiss me! Honestly, what could she have been thinking? Is that how she introduces herself to every boy she meets? She was pretty, yes, but she didn't know a thing about kissing._

"'_Essentially, what happened was this: I was out in the gardens alone, walking and thinking and generally enjoying myself, when I saw this blonde girl on a bench. At first, I thought it was Sif. But when she looked up, I knew I was mistaken. She introduced herself and I did too, and she reminded me that she already knew who I was. Then, she asked if she could walk with me. We walked for only a short time before she was pulling me into the bushes under the claim that she had found an intriguing secret pathway. The next thing I knew, she was all over me, and it was all I could do to get away._

"'_Sif blackened Sigyn's eye that afternoon, once the gossip reached her. She didn't even try to pass it off as an accident! I did not see Sif hit her, but Sif clearly wasn't happy about the whole thing; who else could it have been? Thor kept me fairly busy with nonsense training so that Sif and I wouldn't cross paths; I guess she meant to blacken my eye as well – potentially both of them, and she possibly might have broken my nose too if she'd had the chance.'" Sif shook her head in mock offense. "Loki, you make me out to be such a violent little creature!"_

_He merely shrugged. "I can't think of a time when that notion has been proven false."_

"_Just for that, I wish I had tracked you down and done to you what I did to Sigyn," she told him, flipping more pages in the book, looking for another good story to reminisce upon. As she did, she asked, "Did you really find Sigyn to be such a poor kisser?"_

_Loki watched as leaves of parchment, hand-bound by him and covered with his spidery handwriting, riffled past, suddenly feeling a bit mute with regards to her question. He, unlike many other men of his age, disliked boasting about his romantic escapades. The ladies would say that he didn't "kiss and tell." After his silence stretched on for longer than she liked, Sif shot him a pointed glare, as if she could scorch the answer from the depths of his memory. He answered her with a glance._

"_Would you do it again?" Sif asked, her eyes back down on the pages before her, comment as idle as her page-flipping. "Kiss Sigyn?" she clarified, not looking up._

_Loki just scoffed and rolled his eyes; even if it had been a pleasurable experience the first time, he had since found others he would rather kiss instead. Sigyn was not on the list._

"_Good," came Sif's response. Before Loki could make sense of what she could possibly mean by that, she stopped turning pages, saying, "This one is from a rather long time ago."_

"_Oh dear."_

"'_Sif was being especially insufferable today during training, feeling some need to thoroughly injure anybody who dared to fight her. I myself walked out of the ring with a cut on my forehead, a wrenched neck, a massive bruise covering most of my left thigh, and an impressive number of broken toes. In between rounds, I had to knock my own shoulder back into its socket. Twice.'"_

_Loki grimaced at the memory, but Sif merely raised her eyebrows and read on. "'We all assumed that she was dreadfully cross about something, though we didn't know what. After training, I went to one of the more secluded clearings in the forest to practice some of my magic and hopefully get my mind off of Sif. I was working on a new spell that I had achieved on accident yesterday when she found me. At first, she was just as angry as she had been in the ring, but soon, she sat down on the rock beside me, slumping over like a wounded animal._

'_She told me of the harsh stares and cruel comments she received daily. She told me of the growing unease with her status as a warrior-in-training. She told me that she felt like an outcast in her own home, forced to choose her paths to avoid as much ridicule as possible from onlookers. I understood—far better than she could ever know, actually—but I didn't tell her so; she didn't want to hear it.'"_

_Sif's voice hitched a bit as she recalled the incident, though she pressed on. "'I felt sorry for her, so, when she asked me to cut off her hair, I did it. I will never let her know, but I cried a little bit when the last of it came off and she was left with nothing but skin, the ground at our feet covered in blonde. It was only one tear, but she can never know.'" She paused, glancing up at Loki's somber face. She did not need to ask if what was written was true; the facts were present in his very face as she finished the entry. "'I think I'll give her the knife I used to cut her hair as a gift. She'll probably never understand why, but I want her to have it because I am proud of her decision, and, though I plan on charming her head so that her hair will grow back more quickly, she showed me today that she has what it takes to become a warrior.'"_

_When she had come to the end of that day's narrative, she looked up at the man who had always been the best friend she could ever have asked for; he could see the guilt in her eyes, and, when she said, "I had no idea," he knew that she was being purely honest._

"_I know," he told her._

_Her brow creased as she looked down at the book in her lap, as if making certain that the words were penned down exactly as she had read them. "I always thought," she said, "that you had given me the dagger to mock me. So that I'd never truly forget the rashness of my decision."_

"_And I always thought that that would be precisely why you would get rid of it immediately."_

_Sif scoffed and looked away. She took a breath before saying, "The story is rather different from my perspective."_

"_I would imagine so," Loki replied, lacing his long fingers and resting his chin on his knuckles. He hesitated a moment, and then asked, "May I tell you one?" When she made to begin searching through the journal again, he stopped her hand with one of his own, flat against the pages. "No," he said, "this one will not be among those."_

_Mildly surprised, she closed the book with a dull _thud_, though she did not remove it from its place on the cross of her legs. "Please," she invited quietly, watching, waiting for the Silvertongue to spin his tale._

_He breathed in, and, on the exhale, he began. "Today, I fell from the Bifrost. As the whole of the nine realms rushed past me in a burst of darkness, though, I could not shake my father's face from my mind – so disappointed he was. I had only tried to please him with my short and temporary reign as king. Killing Laufey and destroying Jotunheim – I was so certain that it might make Father love me as much as he loved Thor, as I had always been second. Second-born, second in line for the throne, and second in his heart._

"_I have never felt so lost and angry in all my life._

'_It mattered not, for I landed quite painfully on a dull moon somewhere in the cosmos, though I knew not where. I soon learned that it was home to the Chitauri. They were nothing to be taken seriously, I thought at first; then I met the one who controlled them, and it was he who was worthy of my attention._

'_He wished to know why I had seemingly dropped out of the sky and onto his planet. I did not explain fully, instead limiting myself to saying that I fell from Asgard. He somehow knew that I was not Aesir, though – a bewildering fact, considering that I had only recently learned as much myself. It stabbed to hear him say it._

'_He called my bluff and threatened me with a most painful and lengthy death if I could not prove my merit for living. I was bent by my own fury to challenge him, telling him to name the task which I must do. I cannot say I was much repelled by his answer._

'_I was to be the leader of a Chitauri army in a battle against Midgard, for they were the current possessors of something called the Tesseract: a supposed source of unlimited power that would grant its holder dominion over more than just a realm. I, in my bloodthirsty and battered state, found this to be a rather attractive token. Not only was it enticing in its own right, but it would also serve as a trophy to prove my merit in the eyes of my realm and father. I knew that I could cheat them out of the thing once it was on my person, but obtaining it would require some tricks._

"_So, the Chitauri sent me to Midgard to learn all that I could about this Tesseract. Now, I traipse about the realm, searching for the thing. I seek the Midgardians with whom Thor found solace during his banishment, as, through their contact with him, they would be the most likely to know of the artifact which maintains my fascination. I have yet to find them, but, when I do, I shall be that much nearer to my achievement of power that had never been granted to me in days gone by, and perhaps, if I do this, Father will finally be able to look upon his second son with all the love that he shows the first."_

_When he stopped, Sif remained quiet for a moment longer than he had anticipated. Finally, her troubled face broke and she spoke. "Loki, you must tell this to the court," she said. "If you were threatened, they may be lenient."_

_He shook his head, regarding his own story grimly. "Why should they be, Sif? The selfish thoughts and actions were still my own. I lashed out in rage."_

"_But you're not the same now," she said._

"_You might be the only one to think so."_

"_And when has that ever stopped me from thinking anything before?"_

_Loki smiled at her—grateful, sad, and genuine. "The story of your kindness to me would go well in that book," he said, touching her cheek for just a second before pulling his hand back through to his side of the bars._

_Sif looked down at the book, distractedly running her finger along the weathered and well-loved binding that peeled in places and cracked in others from a careful-yet-amateurish job of sewing in the pages. "Are you frightened?" she asked stiffly, as if voicing the words brought her pain._

_For a long moment, he didn't reply, wanting to answer her but not deigning to tell her the truth. Eventually, he gave a half-hearted shrug. "What more could they do to me?" When she just looked askance at him, he continued, answering his own question. "They could always bind me to a boulder with the entrails of my own kin and wrap a viper around my head to drip venom into my eyes for all eternity."_

_She stared at him._

"_I have had a fair bit of time to think about this, and not much else to occupy me," he explained, a slightly lighter note to his voice that chased away some of the revulsion in her expression._

"_Yours is a curious mind," she told him, running a hand through her long hair, disrupting the newly-uneven ends that Loki regarded with a strange sort of possessive fondness._

_He gave a small nod of acquiescence, though he undermined the gesture by saying, "No more so than yours."_

_At this, she almost grinned in spite of herself, crooking her fingers around the edges of the book. Any mirth in her face died quickly, though. "Dawn is fast approaching," she muttered, looking as if she would rather have not spoken._

_He knew she was right, but he had no desire to face the sun – the guards, the court, the retribution – as yet, so he took the book from her lap and spun it around so that it faced him. Then, hands through the bars, he turned the pages quickly, knowing his way around the contents better than she had. "One more, then," he said, stopping on a favorite of his, "while there remains time."_

_Trailing a pale finger down the page, he glanced up at Sif, feeling better than he had in months. "You will undoubtedly remember this one," he said. Then, he began to read. "'Fitting Thor into a bridal gown was not unlike fitting a bilgesnipe into a wineskin.'"_

_Sif was already starting to smile._


	10. Chapter 10

_Good morning! 'm back on schedule with my Monday updates, so you can expect them on time from now on. Enjoy this next section, and remember that reviews/comments are always more than welcome! :-)_

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Clint had left for work early, Steve was out, Bruce was busy doing whatever it was he did when Tony wasn't watching, and Natasha was still asleep. Pepper had insisted on getting some work done today, and she had disappeared for the duration. So, for all intents and purposes, Tony and Elizabeth had the tower to themselves. For a short time, at least.

Except Tony hadn't heard a peep from his guest all morning.

He wandered the tower, coffee mug in hand, looking for her. It was hardly urgent, but he had yet to even lay eyes on the woman. He wouldn't say that he didn't trust her; he more got the overwhelming sense that she might find a way to get into trouble, because, as elegant and refined as she seemed, he could see something in her eyes that screamed of shenanigans waiting unfold with her at the center. Such was the nature of her mysterious smile.

So much about her was completely unexplainable, though Tony chose to ignore that – not because it was the better option, but because it was the easier one.

When he finally found her, she was sitting on the floor of the library – a place he rarely frequented – clad in a tank top and plaid pajama pants, hair still looking a little messy from sleep, though it was infinitely better than most people's in the morning. Around her, like the shrapnel from a grenade, were dozens of books. Some lay open, others closed, still others turned upside-down to mark her place.

"Morning," he said to her by way of greeting.

She looked up briefly from a volume in her lap. "Yes, it is," she replied absently before flipping the pages and scribbling something down onto a legal pad in long, looping cursive.

For a moment, he just stared at her, trying to make sense of her response. Eventually, he just gave up, moving to stand over her. "Whatcha got there?" he asked, bending down to see her notes, which she quickly spun around for him. Littering the yellow page were fragments of ideas – most taken from books, undoubtedly.

When he gaped at the words uncomprehendingly, she pointed to three boxed phrases in succession. "No," she said, "look at these."

With mild difficulty, Tony read her handwriting, and her intent dawned on him. "You're planning the rebuild," he said, deadpan.

In reply, she just offered him a wry grin before turning her notepad back to face her. "You needed a plan, did you not?" she asked, abandoning her current book in favor of one by her left foot.

"Yeah," Tony muttered, "I did. How'd you know?"

Elizabeth looked up at him skeptically. "I know a struggling man when I see one. This much was clear to me the first time I saw you."

He raised his eyebrows. "You're pretty good. Where'd you learn to read people like that?"

"In this lovely institution called 'life,' Stark," she said without even so much as a glance away from the page before her. "Although I would have expected more from one with your intelligence and creative ability." She shot a very pointed look at his arc reactor, revealed by a subtle blue glow coming through his Guns and Roses tee shirt.

Tony shrugged, glancing down at the object of interest. "I had some pretty strong motivation to make this baby," he told her. "Ever had a hunk of metal try to stab its way into your heart?"

For a moment, it looked like she was going to say yes – like she was about to pull some experience out of her memory and throw it down on the table, trumping his little excursion in Afghanistan. Instead, she just smirked. "Afraid not."

"Then count yourself lucky, Lizzy." She arched a derisive eyebrow at the nickname, but otherwise offered no opinion. He cleared aside some books with far too little care, judging by the irritation that flared across her face, and sat down across from her. "When you've spent a while hooked up to a car battery just to keep alive, you start thinking there must be a better way," he said, granting her a smile as a mini-peace-offering and picking up some loose papers, shuffling through them, attempting to appear helpful.

Re-angling her legal pad, Elizabeth flipped the page and wrote out a neatly organized paragraph. "Before you become involved enough to give me more work," she drawled, a shadow of mockery in her tone, "read this off to your Director Fury." With a fluid, practiced movement, she tore the page from the notepad and shoved it under his nose.

Tony made a bit of a show of taking it, claiming that he "doesn't accept charity," despite the fact that he had just folded the paper and shoved it into his pocket. Elizabeth merely raised a disbelieving brow and gathered several books in her arms, rising with all the grace of a dancer. She didn't say a word aloud as she replaced the volumes on the shelves, though her mouth moved as she alphabetized them, silently muttering the last names of the authors as she scanned for the correct locations.

"You don't need to bother with that," Tony stated, watching her. "Nobody ever comes in here anyway."

She glanced over her shoulder at him and said, "I plan to." Then, as her eyes roved back to the shelves, she added, "I rather like books."

Picking up a few volumes to help her, Tony replied, "Well, good. Someone has to." When she turned around, she looked almost surprised to see him there, holding a heavy, hard-backed copy of an Atlas out to her. Slowly, she took it, nodding her thanks, and slipped it back into its spot.

"And you don't?" she asked. Tony made a gesture somewhere between a shrug and a shake of the head, to which she scoffed. "How can you be a man of science and not love books?"

"Trial and error," he answered. "I read when I have to, but I prefer to learn by kinda playing with stuff and seeing what happens."

Elizabeth laughed. Actually laughed. The sound was completely foreign to Tony, though not entirely unpleasant – heady and grounded, if a bit throaty. Not the sort of laugh he would have attributed to this woman. Still, he had to admit that it suited her.

"That," she leered, "is how the primitives discovered fire."

"Fire was a pretty great discovery," he taunted, his ego clipped and ruffled by her snide remark.

"That very well may be," she gave, still chuckling to herself, "but it does not make you any more sophisticated—or evolved—because of it."

"I know quite a few stockholders who'd disagree," Tony grumbled, turning around to get more books and trying to resist the sudden urge to chuck one of them at her.

He was saved from having to use excessive amounts of self-control, though, as Bruce had been passing by and now peeked into the room to see what all the noise was about. "Bruce, she's being mean," Tony stated. "Make her stop."

"Go and call Fury, Stark," Elizabeth chimed. "I need to know soon if I need to rewrite the plans."

Tony let out an exasperated sigh, mumbling, "You see what I have to deal with," under his breath as he passed Bruce and went to go make a phone call.

"Everything alright?" Bruce asked, ducking partway into the library, taking in Elizabeth's expression – one which seemed to be taking far too much delight in teasing the resident billionaire.

"Oh, splendid, doctor," she replied, unexpectedly pleased with herself as she bent to scoop up the remainder of the misplaced books, heaping them in her arms and putting them back into their places one by one.

Taking a chance, Bruce stepped into the room, letting the door yawn wide behind him. "You sure? Cause he seemed a little –"

"Miffed?" she supplied, shooting him a smirk. "Yes, I know. Delightful, is it not?"

"I don't know," Bruce replied, glancing back at the open door just to be sure Tony wasn't listening. "He can be a bit of a pain when he's mad."

"He is not the only one," she murmured so quietly that Bruce almost didn't hear. Before he got a chance to say anything in response, she covered her tracks quickly by saying, "It will be good for him. An ego of that magnitude requires occasional pruning." The last of her books found its proper place on the shelf, and she turned around to face him.

For the first time since her arrival the day prior, he noticed just how straight her posture was – almost like she had a metal rod implanted in her back instead of a spine. She was hardly rigid, though; in fact, she was quite the opposite, moving with enough grace and poise to give Miss America a run for her money. It just seemed so natural to her – like how her face settled into the smallest of smirks when she was completely relaxed, or how her eyes alone would shift in accordance with her mood, making her face a very difficult one to read.

"You're new around here, aren't you?" he eventually asked, looking her up and down. Though she looked completely normal in her pajamas, she possessed different airs than anybody he had ever met before.

After eyeing him for a second, she replied, "Yes." She turned, straightening some loose papers on a writing desk off to her right. "And, with any measurable sort of luck, I will not be here for very long."

"Stuff to get back to?"

She arched an eyebrow, the gesture shadowed by her sidelong glance at Bruce, her grin appearing too sharp. "More than you can imagine," she replied, the darker look on her face fading as she turned to Bruce once again, though the image of it still burned in the back of his mind, and he asked himself where he had seen a similar expression before.

No answer flew readily into his memory.


	11. Chapter 11

Hello again, lovelies! Thank you to everyone who is following/favoriting this story! It absolutely tickles me that people are enjoying my tale. If any of you readers (any at all; not just followers, etc.) have questions, speculations, or ConCrit, shoot me a message! I usually try to message each individual person back so we can have a bit of a dialogue. I'm also totally open to scene suggestions, too. If there's something you'd like to see, lemme know. I can't make any promises, but I'll definitely consider everything!

Enjoy this new chapter! :-)

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"'—_and we fought the Dwarf army until only the king remained between Thor and his Mjolnir. From that point, it was a simple matter to take back what was ours; I think the king was far too shocked to even consider retaliating. He was gawking at us still, and his mouth couldn't quite form words. But, in the end, we restored Mjolnir to my brother's fist—for better or for worse—and I am proud to say that Sif got her dress back from me without even so much as a tug in the stitching.'" Loki looked up from the pages of his journal to see Sif smiling wryly at him. "What?"_

"_Nothing," she said. "Your modesty becomes you is all."_

_He almost laughed at that; he would have, perhaps, had Sif not glanced down the hall, for, when she did, the smile dropped from her face. He heard someone bid her stand aside as several pairs of boots marched closer. It suddenly felt very cold, and he felt a twinge ill._

_Sif stood at the head guard's request, backing away from Loki's cell door, careful to take the book with her lest it get trampled. There were six guards on escort today, she noticed._

_One of them noisily jammed a key into the lock and opened the cell so that two could go inside and yank Loki roughly to his feet. She wanted to tell them to have a little bit more respect for their prince, but, with a glance, he warned her to stay silent. Then, he shot a look at each of the guards holding him in turn; he didn't say a word, but she could almost hear the derision in his gaze._

"_Lady Sif," another guard said to her coldly, "you are to be at the courthouse for the trial."_

"_I am aware," she returned. "I will walk with you."_

"_No, ma'am, that is forbidden." He leveled her with a gaze that might have intimidated her had she not endured so many much more scathing looks from Loki._

_Remembering Loki's warning glance, she responded calmly, "Why is that?"_

_The guard to whom she was speaking puffed a little at her question. "Not only is it procedure, Lady, but it is also especially important that this particular prisoner be kept in isolation from this point forward." Before she could reply, he said, "You will be at the courthouse, ma'am."_

_Sif's hand went involuntarily to her sword, though she had no intention of drawing it. She tossed her hair back impetuously and said, "Very well." With that, she turned on heel to move past them and out of the dungeon, though not without one last look at Loki._

_He was standing between two guards, hands held in front of him half-heartedly as his heavy manacles were exchanged for a lighter pair of cuffs—obviously enchanted as well. She recognized the impassive mask that was his expression as the one that only came out for dire situations. It was entirely deliberate, so that nobody could see how he was really feeling behind the ice-solid façade. Sif knew it as an instant indication of trouble._

_She couldn't stop herself before she called his name, her voice a touch too loud. He turned to her, as did all of the guards. For a moment, she just stared at them all, wondering what it was she had wanted to say. Then, it came back to her. "One word," she told Loki simply._

_The flash of understanding across his face was brief, but it was there. He remembered. The guards all exchanged glances, confused, but Sif was only interested in Loki's thoughtful face. He was mulling this over carefully. Finally, he met her eyes again and gave his response: "Goodbye."_

"_Goodbye," Loki said quietly._

_As he said it, five of the guards were watching him carefully; only one—the youngest and most inexperienced of all of the escorting company—was looking at Sif. He couldn't stare or she would notice, but a second was enough to catch the wave of panic that crashed over her face. Her hand gripped the hilt of her sword tightly as though it could provide some sense of comfort; a tattered ledger was resting in her other arm, pulled in close like a leather-bound shield. She stood firmly, but the guard who was looking couldn't mistake the tenseness in her limbs; she was strangling herself into silence. It only lasted a split second, and then she had whirled around, stiffly walking out of the dungeon (though she seemed like she would have much rather run)._

_The last guard turned back to Loki before the others had a chance to notice his glance at the lady. Loki looked at him for a beat, face as neutral as ever, though it seemed incredibly inappropriate for the current situation. The overwhelming blandness of it sent a shiver down the guard's spine. He knew Loki had seen the change in Sif too, though there was nothing in his face to suggest so._

_Then, the head pair of guards started moving off down the hallway, and the guards on Loki followed, giving the prince an unnecessary shove. Then, the lead guard and his partner moved, closing the prince within a box of armed guards._

_There was something overtly eerie about the way Loki was behaving; he just stood, languid and careless as ever, neutral faced and stone silent. It had surprised the last guard that the others had neglected to gag Loki when they had cuffed him; the second prince was so sly with his words that it only made sense. Removing speech from Loki's tongue was like removing Mjolnir from Thor's fist – not easy to do, but worth the effort. But now, it just didn't seem to be a problem. Loki had his most lethal weapon within his grasp, and yet he wasn't moving to use it._

_When they arrived at the mouth of the dungeon and pushed the massive doors open, the morning sun streamed through with enough power to offer hope to even the most desolate. The guard himself even felt his own spirits lift at the sight of it. Loki, however, merely cringed from the brightness, stepping forward as he was bidden, but half-blind in doing so._

_The last guard watched the two head guards leading the prisoner very closely – he was to one day ascend to their position among the palace regiments, and he was eager to learn. This time, though, he saw nothing but confusion on their faces. He himself didn't need to wonder why._

_Loki moved at the slightest whim of the lead guards, not an ounce of resistance in his entire body. His eyes were empty and dull – much unlike almost every other prisoner hauled in a panic up from the depths of Asgard's dungeon. He had lost his general air of arrogance, instead replacing it with one of acceptance – not resignation, but complete acceptance, though he knew not what was before him. The most shocking thing of all remained that Loki – the Wordsmith, Trickster, and Silvertongue – stayed entirely silent._

_As they walked, the guard seized every opportunity to scrutinize Loki's profile; the prince went onward as though he had only been asked to go fetch a volume from the library – like this was but the simplest of tasks. There was not even so much as a trace of a smirk or sneer riding along on his lips. The guard wanted to ask him why he would not speak; he had every right to ask, being that he was a guard and Loki, a prisoner._

_As soon as the words started their way up his throat, though, the guard swallowed them again, for the answer had become as apparent to him as the ground upon which they trod._

_The second prince was silent simply because, for the first time in living memory, he had nothing to say._

"_Saving your wit for the court, then?" asked one of the head guards, clearly addressing Loki._

_As if to confirm the rear guard's theory, Loki cast his eyes over the one who had dared question him, but the gaze was just that: a gaze. There was no malice, trickery, derision, or smugness in it. Just a quiet look, as if to decline politely from giving a response._

_The head guard said no more, and Loki did not encourage conversation (nor did he discourage it, the rear guard observed with mild satisfaction). He merely walked where they pointed him, giving less fuss than a well-trained steed._

_The upper two guards seemed slightly agitated, for Loki was rarely so placid, and, when he was, it was because he had a scheme in mind that would make it entirely worth his while – usually causing at least one other party to want his head on a platter as a result. He thrived on such things. Knowledge of this had driven the head guards to their toes, both watching Loki furtively out of the corners of their eyes. _

_The rear guard, however, had seen Loki at some of his mischief before; he had behaved in a very similar manner, granted, but it had been entirely different at the same time. Now, there was something new in his eyes. A willingness – a maturity – that only came after many scars had been left unhealed, still trickling, dripping, or gushing blood, and then had been gently closed for the first time since the injury._

_The guard's mind wandered back to the dungeon, drifting over the memory of Lady Sif's face only minutes before. It had spoken more than any words she ever could have uttered._

_The guard wondered if, perhaps, Sif might possess a healer's soul. Somewhere beneath all that armor, the lady had made the decision to come see him; perhaps, the guard mused, that had been just enough to make the Wordsmith, for once, lost for words._


End file.
